Budgie Phono Preamp Compared to Budgie Hybrid

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by hfarrior3, Feb 20, 2018.

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  1. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Ask him. My guess is that he was just thinking about cart voltage, phono stage gain, amp input sensitivity, and a amp with a volume knob that probably presents a variable input impedance to the source based on what you have the volume knob set at, and not thinking about the speakers at all.
     
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  2. hfarrior3

    hfarrior3 Worst pressing ever ... Thread Starter

    Location:
    Southern USA
    Thanks. I'm trying to keep from overloading him with questions, which is why I'm on here. I feel that I'm just beating a dead horse at this point. I'm going to do some critical listening this weekend to see if I'm happy with gain of my current preamp and ask him if he accepts returns.
     
  3. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    Yep. I know how it is. You want to educate yourself as much as humanly possible before making the jump but the reality is that there's no real way to know for sure whether it'd gel with your cart and amp until you try it.

    Same with carts, really. Some of them are quite costly so it's nerve-wracking to spend that much, not knowing whether you'll be thrilled about your purchase or regret it... but even after a million questions, there'd still be no way for me to know until I try it out for myself. Probably my least favorite part of this hobby.
     
  4. hfarrior3

    hfarrior3 Worst pressing ever ... Thread Starter

    Location:
    Southern USA
    Yeah, this hobby takes a lot of time and money, neither of which I have much of right now. I just want to get a decent system set up that will last a good while so I can get back to actually spending money on records. Every time I research components I always have in the back of my mind how many records I could buy with this money.
     
  5. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    Perhaps but I'd rather have a great system playing 100 LPs that sound amazing rather than 1000 LPs being played on a boring or unimpressive system. Quality over quantity for me. :)
     
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  6. hfarrior3

    hfarrior3 Worst pressing ever ... Thread Starter

    Location:
    Southern USA
    I agree to some extent, but a boring and unimpressive system in subjective we're not discussing Crosley's after all. There has to be a happy medium.
     
  7. Benzion

    Benzion "Cogito, ergo sum" Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY
    Ideally, you want the output from you phono be at least the input sensitivity of your integrated, or more. That's the magic number I've been talking about all this time: output of your cartridge X gain of your phono stage. 800 mV input sensitivity seems pretty high, my modest Yamaha receiver has IS of 500 mV, my above average CA Azur 851A integrated has IS of 350 mV.

    My own experience supports it - when I used to run 300 mV output from my phono (0.3 mV cart @ 60 dB gain) into the Yamaha's 500 mV IS - the sound was lackluster and I had to crank the volume up to get some meat on the bones. Of course, that way I heard what the Yamaha did to the signal a lot more than I heard the cart/phono's performance. Now I run 567 mV (1.6 mV cart @ 51 dB gain) into CA's 350 mV IS - and the sound is luxuriously full and expansive, and the volume on the CA doesn't have to go above 11 - 11:30.

    As far as Budgie Hybrid, with 5.5 mV output of your cart at 46 dB gain, the output from the Budgie into the Jolida will be a whopping 1,097 mV - almost 1.1V, well above it's input sensitivity of 800 mV. Whether that's too much - only your ears can tell. It may sound just great. That high a number seems unorthodox, but your Jolida's IS is kinda high, so it may work well.

    If you find the Hybrid too much, the NEW Tube Box S2 has a gain setting of 43 dB, and is advertised as having NO OP-AMPS, but rather a discrete FET circuit with a tube buffer:

    Box Design by Pro-Ject Audio Systems
     
  8. hfarrior3

    hfarrior3 Worst pressing ever ... Thread Starter

    Location:
    Southern USA
    Actually I was just using the 800 mV as another example. My actual amp is a Jolida FX-10 which has Max. 670 mV for 10 watt output at 1KHz
     
  9. Benzion

    Benzion "Cogito, ergo sum" Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY
    For Jolida's 670 mV the Hybrid seems like even more of an overkill, if you plan to run the 5.5 mV cart.
     
  10. hfarrior3

    hfarrior3 Worst pressing ever ... Thread Starter

    Location:
    Southern USA
    Here was his reasoning. Hopefully he'll let me test one out before I decide which one I want. If not I'll have to decide between what my gut tells me or what the expert says.

    - The 42dB gain recommendation comes from the following calculations. The Jolida needs 670mV of input voltage drive to hit 10W. The Ortofon 2M Blue puts out 5.5mV. So 670mV / 5.5mV = 122 times gain or 42dB gain. With only 38dB, the amp can only put out 4.5W as it runs out of voltage drive. As I said in the earlier email, if you feel that the current gain arrangement is OK, then the regular Budgie should be fine. It has very similar gain to your Cambridge Audio 551P (38dB vs 39dB).

    - You wouldn't ever have a problem with too much gain with the Budgie Hybrid. I think the 46dB rating is a better nominal gain for a wide variety of carts (HOMC and MM).
     
  11. hfarrior3

    hfarrior3 Worst pressing ever ... Thread Starter

    Location:
    Southern USA
    The output impedance of the Hybrid is 600 ohm and the output impedance of the regular is 6K ohm.
     
  12. Benzion

    Benzion "Cogito, ergo sum" Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY
    I understand that. But 46 dB and 42 dB are too far apart for a cart with a whole 5.5 mV output. Precisely my reason for not going with either of the Budgie's, although I really wanted one - their gain values are sort of weird: 38 is slightly insufficient (IMO), 46 is somewhat too much for the majority of the most popular carts of today. IMO, 38 would be suitable for a cart with about 6.0 - 6.5 mV output - Goldring makes a few with 6.5 mV, whereas 46 dB would suit carts like Dynavector 10x5 (2.5 mV) or Ortofon MC-3 Turbo (3.0 mV). The usual range of 4.0 - 5.5 mV is really not optimal for either of the Budgie. But again - that's me, and I'm sort of obsessed with numbers being right.
     
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  13. Benzion

    Benzion "Cogito, ergo sum" Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY
    You match a phono stage to the cart and the amp. If the phono matches the amp's sensitivity and impedance but mismatches the cart's gain - the result is not going to be optimal, either. Plenty of systems do not sound their optimal, yet sound really good, nevertheless. You may still get away with some mismatches. I was just thinking - since you are spending so much time and effort doing your homework and researching - why not try to get it right?

    If you want to match your phono to your amp first and foremost - consider changing your cart to match the other two. If you want to keep your cart and amp - you may need to choose a phono that will be a good match for both cart and amp. It's trickier, but it's easily done. As far as I can see, neither of the Budgie's is a precise match.
     
  14. hfarrior3

    hfarrior3 Worst pressing ever ... Thread Starter

    Location:
    Southern USA
    I know, I'm just tiring of this process and I really wanted a tube preamp at an affordable price. I ordered a Pro-Ject Tube Box DS but returned it when I found out it really just uses the tubes as a buffer.
     
  15. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    Up to you but you can easily drive yourself crazy with research and endless rounds of questions and analysis just like you're doing here. Eventually, you have to make a decision and just buy one to try. It doesn't matter if it's SS or tube or a hybrid. You're over-complicating things to a degree that is making me wonder how you get up in the morning. lol!

    If it sounds good, it's good. Period. That's it. Buy one, try it. You like it better than what you had? You win! You don't? Bring it back and try something else until you do. All the blablabla in the world for as long as you want to do it ain't gonna do jack. Only when you listen live to one can you form an opinion. It's that simple.

    Now, get one already and tell us how it sounds! :D
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2018
    Benzion likes this.
  16. jimbutsu

    jimbutsu WATCH YÖUR STEPPE

    How hard and fast is this? I'm running a Budgie into a Peachtree Nova with, I believe, 50K input impedance, and they seem to play nice together... is it just that I'm probably "close enough?"
     
  17. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Having the load impedance 10X the source impedance is a general rule of thumb, so yeah, at 8.33X you're probably in that "close enough" category not to be noticing any insertion loss or any frequency response modification (because these impedances aren't necessarily flat across the whole frequency range). I mean the math is still the math, you're going to have more loss with the heavier load, and there's no reason to stop at 10X, no reason for a load impedance in a line level audio signal chain not to be 100X the source impedance of the component in front of it. 10X isn't a magic ratio, it's just a convenient one to keep in mind. Here's a good read on the subject: Say It with Me: Input Impedance
     
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  18. Benzion

    Benzion "Cogito, ergo sum" Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY
    A "buffer" is an amp with zero gain, but an amp nevertheless. It gives you the "tube sound" you're looking for, while still maintaining the overall unit as quiet as a good SS unit. To me - it's the best of both types in one box. I love mine. If you read some reviews of it, it easily sounds as good as units costing up to three times the price. Did you listen to it before returning and decided you didn't like it, or were you just a bit put off by the "hybrid" nature of it, and returned it without listening?
     
  19. hfarrior3

    hfarrior3 Worst pressing ever ... Thread Starter

    Location:
    Southern USA
    I was put off by the fact that it uses IC opamps for most of the gain so I returned it without listening. I got it off Amazon so I can always order another and take a listen. I just didn't feel like unboxing it when I already had my mind made up.
     
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  20. hfarrior3

    hfarrior3 Worst pressing ever ... Thread Starter

    Location:
    Southern USA
    Long story short I had already ordered the DS when I read about it using IC opamps, I then heard about the Budgie which is the same price so I returned the DS. Then after digging deeper I started learning about gain levels and going down that rabbit hole and then turned toward the Hybrid.
     
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  21. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    @hfarrior3 Have you heard back from Shannon about his return policy?
     
  22. hfarrior3

    hfarrior3 Worst pressing ever ... Thread Starter

    Location:
    Southern USA
    Yes. He said he does take returns and he reiterated the fact that he thinks I need the hybrid so I'm going to order one soon and try it out. Might get the Pro-Ject Tube Box DS again just to be able to compare the two, but probably won't.
     
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  23. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Personally, I'd say that if a buffer is giving you a lot of sonic character, it's not really a great buffer...or, I should say, it's doing more than just buffering, it's doing some kind of eq and tone shaping.
     
  24. Benzion

    Benzion "Cogito, ergo sum" Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY
    All I know - I really like the sound of my Tube Box DS, whatever the tech behind it is.
     
  25. Davey

    Davey NP: Hania Rani/Dobrawa Czocher ~ Inner Symphonies

    Location:
    SF Bay Area, USA
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