Solid State Phono Stages

That's a fine kettle of photons.

Bliss is a very good guy, but I have to agree with the SR critics, as noted. I am an MD/ molecular biologist with 40+ years experience at the lab bench. Had some wonderful physics teaching in college but have no advanced degree in the field. However, I build and repair my own audio gear and have been studying various aspects of electronics since my retirement 6 years ago and in my spare time for at least an additional 25 years. . Some of the ideas promulgated in the audio world, especially ones that invoke quantum mechanics or a quantum effect, are as laughably wrong or impossible as the speeches of certain politicians.

That’s not quite a fair summation of my comment. I only pointed out that the stated mechanism of the base is at best questionable, because there are many reasons why it cannot possibly block or absorb EMI from the component. I then did acknowledge that it may nevertheless be beneficial in some way, but not by blocking or absorbing EMI. I am not a physicist, so if there is a flaw in my reasoning, I am happy to learn and would admit to an error, if I made one. Likewise, SR make some other questionable claims regarding some of their tweak-y products, like the PHT, which is referred to by SR as a "transducer". That word has a specific meaning, and although I have never seen a straightforward explanation of how the PHT works, I don’t see how it can be called a transducer, at least in common audiophile parlance where a transducer either converts mechanical energy into electrical energy (cartridge) or vice-versa (speaker). In the early years of SR, there were other problematic claims regarding their ICs. None of this is to say or prove that the products don’t sound good or improve SQ.

I re-read this thread. I thought I must have put in a plug for the Essential 3160 Phonolinepreamp, but apparently I did not, maybe because there are not that many in existence and because the 3160 is out of production. Anyway, this is the first solid state phono stage and linestage that makes me forget what it is made of. It’s every bit as pure and authentic sounding as any tube phono stage in my experience, in fact better than any, with the qualification that I also love my tweaked Atma-sphere MP1. Raul and Jose are back in production now with a new model, the 3180, which is said to be upgraded from the 3160. Not cheap but something to think about.

Bruce, if you do a little reading on electromagnetic fields (EMI), you will see that there is no theory to support the notion that a shelf that emits EMI could possibly cancel the EMI from a nearby component. To begin with, EMI is not only radiation into the air around an electromagnetic component, it is also put back into the circuit, both forward and backward on the wiring. No external source of EMI can cancel that. Second, one field might cancel another if the two are exactly out of phase with each other, but that is nearly impossible to arrange, and since there are several potential sources inside any component, all fields are unlikely to be precisely out of phase. The way to prevent radiated EMI from having an effect on nearby components is with shielding, and it’s well done inside any well built audio component, particularly in the BMC MCCI. The very fact that good equipment is shielded, at least between an internal PS and the audio circuitry, would also interdict any effect of an outside source of EM radiation. Synergistic Research is a frequent source of misleading or incorrect info about its products. This is not to say that the shelf itself might not be a good sounding shelf. I just hate to see their BS go unquestioned.

I’m just questioning the semantics. If a hook is a design element that leads to exceptional neutrality, then it ought not to be analogized to a guitar amplifier, which is deliberately designed not to be neutral. If I were designing a tube amp for exceptional neutrality, the first thing I would do is not use the 300B output tube. This is not to say I categorically dislike 300B amps, but they do have their inherently non-neutral character at frequency extremes while also capable of a heavenly midrange when paired with the right speaker.

So a hook is a characteristic coloration that pleases the listener(?) Because electric guitars are deliberately distorted at the source.

Pindac, Please forgive me for my ignorance, but in at least two posts on this thread you have referred to "hooks".  What's a hook?

In my last paragraph above, replace “amplifier “ with “preamplifier”.

Capacitance alone doesn’t tell you much. Depends also on the B+ voltage developed in the supply. Tube devices develop high voltages, e.g., 250V and higher and require less filter capacitor. SS devices usually operate at or below 100V, but 100V would need less filtering than say 25V. Also Class A devices place different demands on the PS, compared to Class AB or B. That can be ignored since preamplifiers are nearly all Class A.

But manufacturers commonly tout massive capacitance as an unalloyed virtue and offer “upgrades” where adequate filter capacitance is replaced by even more than adequate capacitance. This can help in a Class AB amplifier but I’m skeptical how much it helps SQ of a preamp, providing the original filtering was adequate.

Bliss, I assume 203 hours means 2-3 hours. I keep the PS of my SS amplifier on standby at all times. Then when in active use it takes 30 to 45 minutes to bloom. (This is not about the BMC, which I keep on at all times.)

Kucharsk, I have no opinion as to your ARC vs the Boulder phono, but if you truly gave it only a 5 minute listen, you never really heard it in your system. As Pindac notes , solid state gear needs to warm up (literally) to sound its best. In my experience with a different SS phono section, this can take as much as an hour and might take longer after being transported to your home from a dealer. My particular SS phono can take longer to warm up than my all tube phono.

Seems like you will have to buy about a half dozen phono stages in order to appease the crowd, and then listen to them in your system in order to make your own decision. I am being only half facetious. Sometimes you really do have to buy several different versions of the same thing in order to figure out what you like. In your case, you already do have a backlog of experience with many tube and SS phono stages. It is my sense that the best tube and the best SS phono stages have tended to converge upon each other over the last 10 years; it is no longer justifiable to think of tubes as "warm and rolled off" or SS as "cold and analytical". As Mr Prentice already said.

boothroyd, The Phono Loco by Sutherland is balanced.  The BMC MMCI is another balanced "transimpedance" phono stage.

There is no reason a current-driven stage cannot operate in balanced mode; it just has to have been built to do so with essentially separate gain circuits for the positive and negative phases of a balanced signal. This is much easier to do with solid state gain stages than with tubes.

Most higher end tonearm makers will offer their tonearms with "captive" cables as an option, so you have one wire from cartridge pin to phono input. For sure, this is true for Reed and Triplanar; I own one of each, both with captive cables. Clearaudio tonearms are not unique in this aspect.

Re balanced connection: You really already have a balanced connection, as 99% of cartridges offer a balanced output if the wiring permits.  To connect the cartridge to a balanced phono input, you simply use the "Ground" lead from the cartridge as the negative phase of a balanced signal. Optimally, therefore, you want the ground wire to be a conductor identical in type and quality to the conductor used for the positive phase of the signal.  By convention, the positive phase, aka "Hot" on an RCA connector, attaches to pin2 of an XLR connector, and the negative phase, aka "GD", attaches to pin3 of the XLR. pin1 is then where to connect the shield and any audio ground wire.  Since the internal wiring of most tonearms already uses the same conductors for what becomes Hot and GD in a single-ended connection, all you need is a balanced cable (defined as per above, where the pos and neg phase conductors are equal and terminated in an XLR), and of course a true balanced phono stage. (Be careful of that.  Some phono stages that offer XLR inputs are not truly balanced internally.) Also, you could get away with just re-terminating a single-ended phono cable where ground is carried on the shield with XLRs, but that would be a compromise with respect to optimal.

"Transimpedance".  I really dislike that term, although it is in common use these days to indicate a current-driven phono stage. Because it's misleading.  MC cartridges with high-ish internal impedance, say 20 ohms and higher, are not necessarily so well matched with SOME current-driven phono stages, because those phono stages inevitably have an input impedance greater than zero, and because the current output of the cartridge is a function of its internal resistance. (I know a lot of audiophiles break my "rule" by driving transimpedance stages with say a Denon DL103, which has a very high internal R. That's life.) The lower the internal resistance (and the greater the voltage output) of the cartridge, the more current it can deliver. If I am not mistaken, most current-driven phono stages seem to consist of an input stage that converts current to voltage. Then the downstream circuit functions much like any other phono stage.  The I to V conversion is best done by a solid state device. Hence most current-driven stages are at least hybrids or fully ss.  If it were me, I would check on the input impedance of any current-driven stage before purchase.  Ideally you want the Z to be as close to zero as possible.