Preamp for Herron VTPH-2A

What is your speakers, power amp and cartridge ? 

@lewm there are two balanced inputs in his power amp. 

current cartridge is an AT-ART9XA. I have others too, mostly LOMCs.

Power amp is a Bryson 4B SST2 and my speakers are Maggie 1.7i.

Definitely power suckers as I expected :)

Magnepan 1.7 SPEAKERS:

3-Way, Full-Range, Quasi-Ribbon

Freq. Response: 40-24 kHz

Sensitivity: 86dB/500Hz /2.83v

Impedance: 4 Ohm

Dimensions: 19 x 65 x 2

Speaker efficiency doesn't even come into consideration for me, only the sound. If I find a speaker that I like, getting the right amount of power is simple.

No simple and this is the reason you ask for active gain line stage when your power amp already 300 watt. I'm not gonna say your speakers are bad, but they are power suckers for a reason. 

Efficient speakers for the sake of efficiency is just another audiophile religious cult. Feel free to drink your cool aid, I'll stick to sound quality.

We are all for sound quality here, great high efficient speakers can be driven by 2-10 watt amp and passive preamp. Professional BIG studio monitors are high efficient, this is 101db. Main studio monitors must be absolutely neutral and must reproduce music in a control room just like in recording room where musicians are playing. High efficient is about dynamics in music, so it's about quality.  

Hey, you don’t tell me what to do ok? 

I just posted some facts, I don’t care about your speakers, but the nonsense I read on audiogon about GAIN is just a result of those inefficient speakers, let’s face it.


You can buy tremendous amount of power (huge amps, high gain preamps etc), but a good high efficient speakers can work perfectly without all that ... , just with 1.5 watt triode tubes and passive volume control (or passive preamp).

I’ve been using inefficient speakers before. If you bought your phono preamp by audiogon member recommendation then you could learn a bit about GAIN and why it’s not enough gain for you in your system.

99 dB’s and above = ultra efficiency

95 - 98 dB’s = very high efficiency

91 - 94 dB’s = high efficiency

88 - 91 dB’s = medium efficiency ( most common )

85 - 87 dB’s = low efficiency

85 dB’s and below = power suckers

All my peers romanticize Klipsch, Shindo and Garrard, to the point of nauseam, and even I am a child of The Loft ... 

@au_lait
I doubt anyone understand which Loft do you mean, but I guess you're talking about David Mancuso's Loft in NYC in the 70's (Klipsch, Koetsu, Technics and his custom made stuff). 

Moderator: What what the reason to remove my post about The Loft system ?  

I had the Herron, and loved it..... ended up selling it for the Pass XP25 (not only because I’m not ready in life to relax my ear that much, but mostly for the easy of changing cartridge loading/gain without pulling the rack out from the wall to access the loading pins, especially frequent with 2 TTs or tone arms). I’ll may go back to the Herron later. Both Herron and Pass seem to work well with my pre-amp, Cello Palette, which does have 3 internal gain settings as well as balanced output (I’m running 20 foot ICs to my amps that live across the room with the speakers)... but that is indeed vintage, so... no dice.

Cello Palette goes for over $12k today.

They made very cute CELLO Etude which is passive and goes for about $1k. 

There is something similar in these knobs between Pass and Cello :)) 

Nelson Pass stuff is great, love his preamps (passive and active), hope to try his Pass Aleph Ono phono stage and Pass Aleph P preamp soon. 

 

@au_lait

All my peers romanticize Klipsch, Shindo and Garrard, to the point of nauseam, and even I am a child of The Loft ....

The Loft ?
Wow, it’s not easy to meet a person who was at The Loft, only on audiogon ... :)

From this article about the loft: "David Mancuso bought his first Klipsch "Klipschorn" loudspeakers for domestic purpose from Richard Long (RLA) before he went on audio business in 1964. These loudspeakers were the personal ones which Long used at home. In 1965 Mancuso moved to a loft in Broadway. In 1966 he started throwing private parties using two Klipsch "Cornwall" powered by McIntosh amplifier and preamplifier. The sound sources were a Garrard turntable and a Revox 10 inches reel-to-reel. Alex Rosner (Rosner Custom Sounds) constructed his first sound system for the Canada-A-Go-Go and Carnival-A-Go-Go stands at the 1964-5 where he built the world’s first stereophonic sound system. "Up until then it had all been mono. There was no equipment available at the time. There where no mixers, no stereo mixers, no cueing devices. Nothing" he remember. Rosner moved in the clubs, firstly with a place called Ginza and then with the Haven, where he built the "Rosie", the first ever stereo disco mixer used by DJ Francis Grasso. "They called ’Rosie’ because it was painted in red. It was really primitive and not very good. But it did the job. And nobody could complain, because nothing else around". Rosner sold to Mancuso the two Klipsch "Cornwall" loudspeakers for his space in Broadway back in 1966."