Phono Stage - The great analog tragedy

@dover your list of vintage standalone phonostage is very interesting. I will check them out one by one.

Having a phonostage inside a preamp or outboard is notional. A preamp with phono and external PSU is probably the best thing. Where I was coming from was, there was no cutting edge work going on in phono, like it was happening for amps, preamps, CD players and Turntables. In the 60s we got Marantz, Mcintosh, Quad for tube amps. In the 70s came in ARC, Naim, followed by Mark Levinson Class A, Krell Class A etc. Then there were Japanese giants like Sansui, Pioneer, Yamaha building the best of the seperates. Take any phonostage (other than the Marantz 7 which I have heard great things about) built inside these components, they cannot be considered in the same league as the remaining of the amplification chain. No cutting edge work on phono. They sound noisy and midfi.

I think your experience must be limited, and I disagree with your premise. Not to say those vintage units were better than what we have now, but only to say you might be surprised at the similarities between old and new circuit designs. We simply have better parts today and the benefit of hindsight. For one example, the Marantz 7C originally used selenium rectifiers, because that’s what they had available. If you simply upgrade the rectification, the SQ takes a leap forward. 

The Sansui AU III is a commonly listened to by myself as an Amp used for driving Stacked Quads.

If I can say it has one advantage in comparisons to other same models that might have been heard by others. Which is where it has been fully overhauled where Components are concerned and Tube Rolled for across many Years. With the permutation for Tubes in use, it makes the option to Bi Amp with the spare AU III quite an expensive consideration.

The Phonostage on the AU III Model has been heard on different occasions with a range of SUT's or Head Amp's in front of it. Where during these occasions as a device for replaying LP's, it has proved as impressive a the Modern Day Design Phon's that have been loaned for use at the same arranged session.

Very experienced individuals with audio equipment, as a result of their listening to the Vintage Phon' have found criticism, only good appraisal has been shared.     

@lewm I agree I have not experienced too many vintage phonostages but I am trying to find good ones and the shortage of it is appalling. It is well known that they had lesser quality parts but if it was only that then just like the Mcintosh, Quad, Naim amps, we would have had phonostages from that era reissued with better parts. Where are they? I would love to find them actually. Marantz is one unit I am very intrigued and will try it. I still feel the innovation around phonostages is at its highest today which is quite opposite to the innovation around other audio components

in the 60’s, 70’s analog circuitry was quite common. It was usually discrete components, no IC’s.

Most of the experienced engineers had good knowledge on how to build an amplifier. There was no reference component (IC) that was used. Rather many different designs. The standard to follow were the riaa curves as you noted.

Now, there are many electrical engineers in the US (and likely other countries) that are not experienced in analog circuitry, as it simply isn’t common.