Hagerman Cornet 3 Phono Pre vs Competition

So I've recently just gotten rid of some Mcintosh stuff, and have a new Line Magnetic 216ia tube integrated on the way! Only problem is, my C33 had a fantastic MM phono stage. I'm looking at $500 and under stages - and can't find much in the way of reviews on the new Cornet 3 tube phono pre from Jim Hagerman. Looks really interesting. Anyone own one and care to share your thoughts?
Anyone compared this to an iFi Iphono or Heed Questar. I can probably demo the Heed, but won't be able to listen to any of the others.
Lets say for now I'm sticking with MM or HOMC cartirdges, and perhaps later will add a SUT if an LOMC is desired...

 

Check out the Lounge Audio Phono Preamp.

 

I'd recommend considering a Bottlehead phono preamp.

 

I use a budgie passive riaa tube stage. It costs 400$ and you get EH 6922's as stock tubes. The manufacturer has also recently released a new version called budgie hybrid which is an active riaa stage which uses a jfet together with tubes. Happy hunting!

 

There are great reviews on the Lounge Audio Phono Preamp.There is also another one called
Vista Audio, both are around $300.00 If I was looking in that price range I would go with one
of those two. Good luck with your search.

 

I don't own a Cornet 3. But I have Hagerman's Bugle and it is very quiet and smooth.
I hope you try the Cornet 3 and let us know how you like it.

 

The Cornet 3 and the Budgie look very interesting. I just wonder how much one can expect from such a low cost tube circuit compared to say The Heed Questar or iFi iPhono. Granted I haven't heard any of these preamps. I have heard and enjoyed the Graham Slee Reflex, but its quite a bit past my budget....

 

Just bumping this thread. Still looking at Hagerman Cornet 3 pretty intently. Any cornet owners care to reflect on the its qualities in their system?

 

I too am looking for feedback on this one.
Is there an op amp in the signal path?

 

I'm not sure about the Cornet3, but the Budgie, which was mentioned earlier in the thread, does not use op amps. I own one and it's a great phono preamp.

 

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?35066-Hagerman-Cornet-3-Valve-Phonostage-Build

 

Attempting to inject some life to this thread in order to inquire if anyone has some first-hand opinions about the cornet 3. Based on the reviews I have read, the unit seems rather promising.

Thanks.

 

I love mine; the only caveats I have are that the gain is 43 or 44db, compared to the usual 39db of most MM stages. Tube rolling easily shows off differences between the sound profiles of vintage tubes, although with some break-in time (either your ears or the tubes), the stock tubes supplied are perfectly decent. Compared to the solid state Hagerman preamps, the performance is quite similar.

 

I nearly pulled the trigger on one! Really looks like a great deal for s phone pre and it is really well regarded, as are his other products. Ultimately I was really intrigued by the lounge LCR and got that instead. Very happy with it!

 

I'm glad you love yours. It seems that with this pre-amp, tube rolling could be quite an enjoyable experience.

Your comparison between tube and solid state Hagerman equipment suggests that his solid state gear can be quite impressive. Good to know.

Thanks for your reply.

 

Thanks for suggesting the Lounge. Based on the few reviews I have read, its performance seems quite impressive. The price is also very tempting. Since moving to tube gear, I had not considered going back to SS, but the Lounge has sparked my interest.

Did your Lounge (temporarily?) replace a tube or SS phono preamp?

Thanks for your reply.

 

I recently replaced a Jolida JD9 with the Lounge and am very happy with the change.

 

when i got my Line Magnetic amp, i had to find a new phono stage. Had a graham slee gram amp se2 for 6 months while i looked into the sub $500 phono stages. since i was very convinced by tubes vs ss, i was leaning heavily towards the hagerman cornet. however i know that i would have wanted to replace the 3 12ax7 tubes in it with something better, this pushed the cornet to $650 ish. Still seems like a fantastic deal if it sounds as good as it is supposed to. ultimately i was intrigued by the lounge and at $300 was 'half' the cost and more in line w my budget. I will say the first couple days w the lounge i felt the gram amp had a fair margin of superiority. but when it had a chance to warm up and break in it was amazing how much more of the recording came through. the space and dimensionality became superb and palpable.

 

This is rather revealing, in consideration of the respect that the Jolida JD9 has among its owners. Thanks for sharing your perspective. This fuels my interest for the Lounge, although I quite dislike the blue LED illumination (but that can easily be resolved).

 

Those Line Magnetic amps, especially the 300b type, certainly seem superb. You have a point regarding tube rolling, which I had not considered because I have a few extra 12ax7s and once those expired I assumed I would have moved on by then.

I am intrigued by the LCR design. Since I live close to the designer of the Lounge, I may ask him if he is willing to do a demo, although your feedback is rather persuasive.

Thanks again.

 

Signed up since it looks like very few people who own the Cornet 3 are posting. I'm pretty new to hifi, so I mostly lurk. I ordered a kit right after the Kickstarter succeeded. It is my first build and only pice of tube gear currently. I can't really say much in the way of comparison to other preamps, but I can say that it was easy to build (and save 100$) with a basic understanding of soldering and electronics. It is very easy to roll tubes and I have found that the new-production 12ax7 Mullards the kit came with pair amazingly with a JAN CRP 5814 black plate on my basic system. I do find it a little strange though that the power button and port are on the opposite side from the line inputs and outputs. It looks a little out of place with the power cord poking out of the front in my entertainment cabinet. It does get a little hot to the right side over the IRF740 though.

 

(WARNING: This post is long and LACKS audiophile terminology)

An assembled Cornet 3 came my way for less than MSRP--with a set of vintage Telefunken tubes!

I had to buy it.

For over a year, I had been extremely happy with my Les Box, which is a Yaqin MS 23B transformed by Les Carpenter in the UK into a remarkable piece of equipment (for more information, please see: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/lez/Yaqin MS-22B/Putting 'Life' into the Yaqin MS-22B.pdf ).

I was so excited, but disappointment over the Cornet 3 soon set in, and excitement over the Les Box was re-validated.

I tried the Cornet 3 with a few records I know well using the stock tubes first (reissues of one 12au7 Electro-Harmonix and two 12ax7 Mullards).

1. Don Cherry, Art Deco (1989); track: Art Deco. The Cornet 3 was bright, bright, bright! I had to stop the record and switch back to the Les Box because I certainly did not remember Cherry's cornet being so bright.

I was astounded. The Les Box was balanced--just perfect.

2. John Coltrane, A Love Supreme (1965, stereo first pressing); track: Resolution. Less bright, but still not something to which I was used. It lacked ambience, three-dimensionality.

Switching back to the Les Box brought me back to the flavorful notes I remembered.

This convinced me that I was biased, so I stopped switching back to the Les Box.

I went to my vinyl rock section and pulled out Dire Straits.

3. Dire Straits, Brother in Arms (1985; Ludwig pressing); track, Money for Nothing. I began to smile. Everything sounded better than I remembered. More balanced, better soundstage. When switching to a 300B SET from a EL34 push-pull years ago, I loved how a singer's voice was brought to the foreground in jazz, but disliked how it was lost in rock. Yet, the Cornet 3 with stock tubes revealed that strength of the 300B SET.

I listened to the rest of the record in delight, for the initial experience was replicated.

At this point, I decided to try the coveted vintage Telefunken tubes.

I expected "Money for Nothing" to blossom like a symphony, but this did not occur. I began to understand what I had read about people either hating or loving Teles: sound was all over the place. Given my lack of audiophilic terminology knowledge, all I can say is that the sound was nebulous, without sufficient instrument separation and 3D qualities. The only thing that I liked was Knopfler's guitar solo at the beginning because the Teles gave a very vintage sound that splattered all over the sonic place.

I went back to the Coltrane record. Then I considered the possibility of believing in deities. The Telefunken set transported me to RVG's studio. I listened to side one with great joy.

I pulled out Miles Davis.

4. Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, (1959, six-eye stereo); track, So what? I started searching for goddesses in whom to believe. In spite of its VG status, this record sounded great. The Cornet with Teles was my new best friend.

Then I placed a set of Psvane mkII in the Cornet 3 (one 12au7 and two 12ax7s).

That is why I have a love/hate relationship with tube rolling.

Not better than the Teles, but close. In fact, more satisfactory, because everything was tighter, more 3D, discernible sound stage, more liquid.

I scratched my head and played "Money for Nothing" with the Psvane set. Better than stock and MUCH better than the Telefunkens. The only thing I missed from the Teles was the vintage sound on the guitar solo, but the rest gave me chills.

Going through all the previously tested records convinced me that the stock tubes are better for rock and more modern recordings, the Telefunken are suited for Jazz and older recordings, and that the Psvane were a better all-in-one solution. This, of course, in combination with the Cornet 3.

I went back to my beloved Les Box and was HAPPY. With its entry level set of Sovtek Winged C LPS, this modified Yaqin (to which Les added a third valve and a very accurate RIAA equalization) sounded more satisfactory with every record and any tube combination used in the Cornet 3.

As a final test, I pulled out another jazz record, one of the best examples of recording engineering (Apologies, RVG).

5. Sonny Rollins, Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders (1958, stereo first pressing); track: The WHOLE record. Roy DuNann may have just created a masterpiece here. I could not stop listening with the Cornet and the Psvanes. But with the Les Box paired with a trio of vintage Telefunken ECC83s, I HAD to continue listening. In fact, I pulled all of my Contemporary first pressings. It was a lovely evening.

I am keeping the Cornet 3 for my office. At some point, I hope to get a good deal on a used Lounge Audio LCR to make some comparisons. Who knows? The Lounge, being Solid State, may do the trick, since I will not have to roll tubes between music genres.

Wait a minute. The Les Box already solves that problem with stock Russian tubes.

 

Thanks for that, CarlosLemus. The LesBox was My original plan (a few years ago) for the under 5 hundy tube phono pre. Exhaustive forum dredging had led me here and then right back to the beginning. I've already got the (Svetlana) winged "C" box anode 12AX7's so it seems a natural solution. Although, Yaqin has introduced a "new for 2016" MS-33B with 2 12AX7's and 1 12AU7 that is MM/MC compatible, but nary a peep about it from any new owners on the introwebs. I wonder If they took design notes from what Les has accomplished with his circuit mods.

Before I eliminated Facebook from my life, I was in contact with Les through the Yaqin page. What a great guy! Could anyone be talking about the '33B over there, perhaps? Not willing to reactivate. (yet)