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Mid-Hi fi Phono preamp w/ volume control?

I am looking for a low priced (<$500 new or used) preamp with a phono stage or a phono preamp with a volume control. I currently have an old Dual belt drive with a Grado Red Cartridge, that I play through an old reciever in the basement, but I will be purchasing an AR ES-1 w/ Merril mods and a Clearaudio MM when a friend gets married.

This will be going thru the 2 ch bypass of a Sony TAP-9000 ES multichannel preamp, an Adcom 7500 power amp (next to go), and Dynaudio 1.8 mk II's.

I'm sold on SACD, even with the limited software, but I have too much vinyl(~700) that will never see high rez digital, or that the original CD sounds like garbage.

Thanks for any advice,

Jim
jpharris
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
EAR 834 doesn't look and sound like mid-fi. It's rather true high-end device. It's quite a work for now to get it under $500.
Brittish pound drops down for now(thanks to EURO!) and ordering directly from England will save you a couple...
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
Yes there is no mistake on that one:
order it directly from www.stoneaudio.co.uk for <$600 with the shipping VS $895 price in US.
jpharris OP
41 posts
 
Thanks for the info. I have heard the full featured unit, I think it was EAR 864?? and loved it, but it was too pricey for what I wanted. I will look into the 834 models with volume control. I agree that it doesn't fit the mid fi description, but I could suffer the indignity of better quality if I had to.

Thanks
ljgj
955 posts
 
I had an Antique Sound Lab Phono preamp tube unit that had volume controls for each channel. It was very good - I do not remember the model number but they perhaps have something similar but the EAR is a hard one to beat.
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