Pure tube phono preamp

Thank you @rauliruegas 

Link to our family music room here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ua7wMgbAEJ4M14kx6

* Rack is DIY that I fabbed in the garage.
* Very bottom row are the MFA 200Cs
* Next row up is Wavestream Kinetics tube phono on the left. Wavestream tube line on the right

Photo is an older photo and doesn't show the relatively new to me:

* Siegfried Linkwitz LX Mini + 2 subs; built those myself
* Nelson Pass / Linkwitz active analog crossover from DIYAudio; built that one as well. 

Both projects were very enjoyable; a time machine back for me when I built a lot more electronic projects and ham radio projects.

My listening sofa, in the picture, on the left is gone and now has a 4.5 octave Yamaha marimba that my son plays....room gets a little crowed now, and we have to take turns practicing instruments / listening to music in that room.  My son graduates high school this year...so the marimba goes back to the high school (Covid19 has percussion students using school instruments at home....pretty cool hearing that marimba at home) ..and back comes my sofa!

I purchased most of this gear over the past 25 years...to your point re. cost.  It takes time, and I have been blessed and appreciated the long  journey.

I just had Donna at Sota completely restore my original Sota Saphire with their new mag lev bearing / Eclipse package / sub platter / chassis...basically ground up restore.  I was  the original buyer back in 1985-sh with the ET2 air bearing arm....still using that as well.

My gear upgrades have come to an end...except  I never purchased a DAC and have been using the Sony CDP X779ES CD player I purchased back in 1991 for my CDs.  I will probably buy an R2R DAC, and that will be the last purchase.  Moving my sights onto a grand piano these days...enjoy playing more than listening.

-stu

Dear @stuogawa : Really good system and that 901 is very good cartridge ( I owned ) with that classic TT/tonearm combination: Sota/ET.
Yes, you need to add that DAC.

Enjoy your playing ! !

R.

@stuogawa   Great system you have their!

How high on the volume control before you hear any tube rush with the Wavestream Phono Stage?

What speakers are you using in this system?

Best Wishes,
Don

I will suggest considering a Doshi Alaap. This was Nick's (Doshi) first commercial component offering for a few years. The "full function", which I have, or seperate phono and linestage. I bought mine here, for about $6000. Retail list was $14,500. It always received fully positive reviews.

You can find all-tube MC phonos which can handle LOMC without any kind of SUT or SS front end, just pure tubes, from China. Look at AliExpress. I bought a specific unit the Lite Audio LS26 which was a little under $400. Supposedly it's clone of an old brand name like CAT or Marantz with a high-gain tube section graphed on Frankenstein style. It had enough gain for my TA Zeus LOMC...but it was very noisy and picked up microphonics like crazy. I had put weights on the top case, Herbie tube rings and rubber footers under the chassis to get that under control. I also had to keep it well away from other electronics or it might pick up a hum. It worked though. I ended up just getting a SUT (Hashimoto 20x built by someone on eBay) because the noise level was a little too much. There's a bunch more like this on AliExpress, just search for phono preamplifier and you'll find them.