Pre-amp with great phonostage (tube)

i yust sold my rogue 99, w/magnum upgrade, plus nos ge tubes. no regrets - the cary slp98 - stock version - beats it in *all* areas. i must say that i used neither of their fono-versions, as i run an outboard fono-stage, but all sources - fono included - sound markedly better thru the cary than thru the rogue. better dynamics, better extension, especially in the bass, and a magical midrange, w/no loss of detail or transparancy. i am going to a-b the cary w/a melos music director - whichever wins, stays in my system & i'm done looking for preamps for a while... ;~) doug

electrocompaniet ec-1a - is a solid-state preamp w/an excellent fono-stage - both mm & mc. not your typical 2-d solid-state presentation. i have one i use as a back-up. not ready to part w/i at this time! doug

hi david99, the input impedence my preamp sees is 25k-ohms; while rogue sez the output impedance of the rogue 99 is 100ohms, this is surely not the case. as a test i ran a 2.2k-ohm resistor across the rogue's outputs, & this *noticeably* reduced the volume coming out of the speakers. it would not surprise me if the actual output impedance of the rogue is 2500 ohms, or even higher. i tried this same test w/the cary in the system (~800 ohms rated output impedance), and there was absolutely *no* reduction in volume, when the output was crossed w/the 2.2k-ohm resistor. perhaps, w/the rogue seeing a higher input impedance of, say, 50k-ohms, or 100k-ohms, there would have been no loss of mid-bass in my system. impedance-matching *is* important! regards, doug

(sy)phill(ys), i guess ewe 1st have to have a certain level of intelligence prior to being able to determine that of others - ewe can attribute my liking of the cary to dumb-luck, intelligence, whatever - no concern of mine, really. regarding melos, i *am* at least smarter than ewe regarding this, because i know their true status, and it's obvious ewe don't. i also know the reliability of the piece in question, know that i'm paying less for it than the cary, even tho it retailed for almost twice what the cary retails for, cuz of a lot of folk's ignorance about melos (like *ewe*, perhaps?), and i know that 3 cary dealers i talked with *all* said the melos sounds much nicer than the cary. so, thanks for your support - i, *too*, hope i like the melos better. but, if i don't, no problem, i like the cary yust fine on its own. doug