Phono Stage upgrade to complement Dohmann Helix One Mk 2

@rauliruegas , I think you are thinking of the Lino C which is a more entry level unit. The Seta L Plus is quieter than the Boulder and can be had with s super accurate RIAA board or it can use even more accurate digital RIAA correction through Channel D's Pure Vinyl computer program. The Seta L 20 is a really serious piece of work. Check out the specs on it. I think you will be amazed. I would love to try it but I can't get myself to spend that much on a phono stage. 

@mijostyn  : Really? No, you are wrong. As almost always I don't post almost nothing the thread gentlemans/audiophiles can't corroborate.

The L20 weigthed S/N is 88db and you can see it in the chart where Channel D made a comparisons with older Boulder models.

The BM MCCI measured by JA STEHP figures are:

"" very quiet phono preamp: its unweighted wideband signal/noise ratio, measured with the input shorted and ref. 500µV at 1kHz, was 83.2dB in the left channel, 71.8dB in the right. A-weighting these ratios gave improvements to 99.9 and 103.3dB, respectively. Channel separation was equally superb, measuring >105dB at 20kHz. "

Way better.

As I said to you:  " I never heard that phono stage ( L 20 ) that you like to much and I think is a good contender.

R.

On the issue of RIAA correction, I certainly agree that adherence to the standard curve should be tight, but my question is how tight makes any difference? Channel D claim their phono stages are within 0.1db, guaranteed, and typically within 0.01db for any given unit.  If you read the history of phono equalization, you find that the original tolerance for meeting the RIAA curve was +/-2db.  That was probably the margin for error of necessity, based on the microphones and the recording equipment up to and including the lathes available in the late 1950s. I am not sure whether that applied to making LPs or to reproducing them in the home, but it seems certain to me that most of the vintage LPs we cherish will vary by quite a bit more than +/-0.1db in their adherence to the standard curve.  So, when you're decoding one LP vs another, you can not be sure that your phono stage is correcting for the pre-emphasis put into it by the maker with the accuracy claimed. For one LP, it may be as perfect as claimed.  For another LP it may be off by much more than 0.1db.  So, I would ask for very good RIAA accuracy, but I would not choose one accurate phono stage over another based on ultra-precise adherence to the imaginary pre-empasis curve.

@lewm , absolutely correct. It is like rumble specs in turntables. It is nice to be quiet but it does you no good if the lathe rumble is much higher.

@rauliruegas , I'm not sure where you are getting your figures from but with a bandwidth of DC to 20 megahertz the EIN of the seta L 20 is -134 dBu UNWEIGHTED. That is an unheard of performance. Granted I have not seen any independent testing and figures but even if Channel D was 20% off this would still be far in excess of any other phono stage that I know of. Even the lowly Seta L is better than the Boulder, 64 dB down A weighted VS the Seta L's 71 dB down, A weighted. That is close to 1/2 the noise level. 

@rauliruegas forget about other Kondo models, they are average. Have you heard the GE10 ? I have heard it in a full FM acoustics system and compared with a FM 222 phono in the same system.