Not sure what your budget is but I have a Parasound JC3 Jr. with my Denon DP-60L/Ortofon Bronze combo. I'm no vinyl expert but it sounds great to me. I was able to snag the JC3 Jr. used for well under a grand.
phono preamp for the ortofon 2m bronze
hello need some input . I am looking to get back to my vinyl, I have a kenwood kd650 spinner with a grace 707 tone arm. I need a phono preamp and have been looking at the sim audio 110lp v2, arcam r phono, musical surroundings phenomena II and the last one is the project phono box ultra 500 which does not have any reviews I can find .I would like to stay solid state so are any of these preamps a good choice? if so which is better? there are so many on the market it is hard to pick one out. I would like it to be adjustable also . thanks for the help.
- ...
- 23 posts total
@kully560 - I have a Simaudio Moon LP5.3 RS phono stage - which is very much like the current LP610. The nice thing about Simaudio as a company is, they flow all of their latest "developments" DOWN to their entry level products as time goes by, as opposed to designing entry level products from scratch, so the LP 110 is actually a very good phono stage based on the developments in their TOTL products. Simaudio products are - whisper quiet even at full volume (i.w. while not playing) - extremely well made - very musical (to my ears at least) - respond positively to the use of good cables/power supply The 110 comes with a separate 24v DC power supply, so it would be very easy to upgrade the power supply provided to a more robust linear power supply for improved performance. Here’s a review https://www.soundstageaccess.com/index.php/equipment-reviews/924-simaudio-moon-110lp-v2-phono-stage BYW - I leave my phono stage turned on 24/77 and have not encountered any issues in over 3 years Hope that helps - Steve |
Look for a phono stage with optional loading, the best way is RCA plug-in load resistors (in parallel). Very expensive phono stages designed this way (like Herron), but you can buy a decent solid state phono stage for MC and MM cartridges with rca plug-in load resistors from JLTi. With this phono stage you can load not only MC cartridges, but also your MM. Most of MM cartridges are better at 100k Ohm instead of 47k Ohm, especially when you feel they are too dark in your system. Very few manufacturer will give you an optional loading for MM ! You can ask Joe at JLTi to make a mod inside the phono stage to have this option, this is what i asked for after reading old post from well educated a’gon user. The internal resistors inside the JLTi have been changed to 500k Ohm, in this situation a plug-in RCA resistors on the back can be whatever value. You can unload your MM using 100k Ohm, or you can load your MM lower than 47k Ohm, or you can always use standard 47k Ohm. With LOMC cartridges you can use absolutely whatever value. This is a great phono stage! The latest mk5 version available for US$1034 including shipping from Australia. P.S. iPhono is very low quality (made in china) with a lot of problems, many users reported about defective items and even after some big online shops replaced one item to another they are appeared to be defective again, crazy story. Very low quality control, i would never buy an iPhono 2 or whatever from this company. |
- 23 posts total