EAR 834P + Bent Audio Stepups = greatness?

If you get a nice sut that is well matched to your cartridge you can use it with any mm phono stage so if you want to move up from the ear you can take it with you. As an example I found the Bottle head seduction to be a major step up (over the 834) in my system using the same sut. The critical point being that the sut is well matched to your cartridge.

This is a great question that I am actually facing too. As I have narrowed my system down to a single source (vinyl playback), I will be selling my active linestage quite soon. The only pre-amplification I will be left with, after that sale, is my EAR 834p.

Do I sell it and go for a phono stage with an integrated volume control?

Do I keep it and run it into a passive volume control?

Do I use a step up, take it out of MC mode, mod it, and then run it into a passive volume control?

It looks like Bent audio has some wonderful options, but I cant help but thinking that I should try out the Placette volume control too. Fortunately I have some time for some of these decisions because my new turntable is still being built (a Garrard 301 w/ Dobbins plinth), but all will be here soon enough. BTW, the rest of my system is an EAR 861 amp into Quad ESL 57 speakers.

If you go with the Bent gear and the 834P combo, please update this thread with your findings. Good luck.

I had planned to do just that. My EAR is not my only phono pre and I had planned to sell it but instead, just for fun, I decided to do all of Thorsten's upgrades, including Romy's air capacitors. I always did really like the EAR. However, in audiophile terms, it could not stand up to my Loesch style FET phono front end. The rebuild made it reasonably competitive with anything I've heard - different from the Loesch but still very good.

All that to say: that I recently scored a set of S&B stepups (Copper) from a guy in Switzerland who was also offering a set of S&B's 600R LCR modules. (Not the 10K set that was recently here on Audiogon). Instead of rebuilding the EAR again with the S&B stepups, I decided to build Thorsten's LCR RIAA phono design with E810F and D3A. I will post it to my system soon.

MIke

I decided to build Thorsten's LCR RIAA phono design with E810F and D3A.

Please keep us posted, even on developments if possible. Good luck

Dear Zanth: I understand that you own over 1K Lp's and this means that you have a good investment on software.
You own a Michel/SME/Koetsu analog rig that tell me you really care about music sound quality reproduction.

At the same time ( with all respect to EAR and EAR owners. ) you own the 834P that almost destroy the cartridge signal integrity: it is heavy colored, noisy ( signal to noise ratio of 66db ), RIAA eq. deviation higher than 1 db, high output impedance, etc, etc, etc.

I think that you want to grow-up on the overall quality performance level when you hear LP's, right?, well if you want it then IMHO is that you forget about the 834P ( and up-grades to it ) or step-up transformers and goes for a real better phono stage with out step ups.
Btw, +++++ " if paired with exceptional step ups.... " +++++

IMHO there is no single " exeptional " SUT at any price/any design, the best step up is NO step up at all.

Like always my advise is that you put your money ( as much you can ) where it counts more: the phono stage, the reward is worth it.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.