phono pre amp,what is the best...

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by patricku, May 11, 2002.

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  1. patricku

    patricku New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Germany
    I want to buy a new one,What do you think ?
    I hear today the Manley " Steel head " It did sound wonderful,so did the Klyne..I will check the new Ensemble...
    I want state of the art but one that do work without problems..any suggestion ?
    Merci.
     
  2. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

  3. patricku

    patricku New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Germany
    Very kind,but

    I did not see a dealer for Germany,and that is A problem !
    As some times you need some servicing....
    The last bad case I had was with Theta...nobody seems to be able to repair my David dvd player !
     
  4. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    I understand.

    There is a Manley dealer in Germany?
     
  5. cunningham

    cunningham Forum Resident

    Location:
    dallas, tx
    The Groove?

    I think that the Tom Evans Groove pre comes out of England. It is highly respected, and not inexpensive.... A bit closer to home?
     
  6. patricku

    patricku New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Germany
    Yes..since ..yesterday....and he did not inspire me a lot of confidence...but this unit was..sounding!!!
     
  7. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Aren't there any German made valve Phono Stages?
     
  8. patricku

    patricku New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Germany
    Re: The Groove?

    Distance do not make me afraid,but the capability and the will for repairing..that does..
    Most of the " Hi-Fi " people want to sell and few are proud of their products...bad but true !
    by the way do they have an home page ?
    Merci
     
  9. patricku

    patricku New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Germany
    Yes,but no one with a solid reputation,I know,beside, that it must NOT be a valve !
    I try the Clearaudio´s ,witch I did not like ( two of them )
     
  10. cunningham

    cunningham Forum Resident

    Location:
    dallas, tx
    Re: Re: The Groove?

    try:

    http://www.besthifiintheworld.com
     
  11. patricku

    patricku New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Germany
  12. cunningham

    cunningham Forum Resident

    Location:
    dallas, tx
    The Groove?

    You are most welcome. I came to know of the Groove through a recommendation in one of Tom Port's Better Record catalogs. He was fond of them, and at one time marketed them. When I cantacted Tom for one, much later, I found he no longer carried them. He was kind to sell me his demo Herron Audio pre, another outstanding unit.
     
  13. patricku

    patricku New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Germany
    Re: The Groove?

    I read ,I remember now ,in HIFI + the review, but yet again ,no one in Germany to carry this product..
    and I want one that I can test in my very own room..
    As , I will be in Bath ( England ) next month I will try to lend one..Thanks again !
     
  14. petzi

    petzi Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    What brand and type of tubes do they use in that amp ?
    Does it have solid state or tube rectifiers ?
     
  15. Paul Chang

    Paul Chang Forum Old Boy, Former Senior Member Has-Been

    My friend Peter Braverman (peterredtrumpet) reviewed the Hovland HP-100 in the abou!ute sound, Issue #131. He mused that its phono stage ($1,000 for MM, $1,500 for MC; mutually exclusive options - can't have both) is the best bargain! The catch - you have to buy the line stage ($4,995).
     
  16. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

  17. Paul Chang

    Paul Chang Forum Old Boy, Former Senior Member Has-Been

    More on Hovland HP-100

    Harry Pearson likes the HP-100 (not just the model name ;) ), too. However, this may be a turn-off for TP. :eek:
     
  18. cunningham

    cunningham Forum Resident

    Location:
    dallas, tx
    Re: More on Hovland HP-100

    The Hp-100 plus the Sapphire certainly make one of the most beautiful looking amp, pre-amp combos out there. The beautiful blue makes me green with envy.
     
  19. Paul Chang

    Paul Chang Forum Old Boy, Former Senior Member Has-Been

    Re: Re: More on Hovland HP-100

    cunningham,

    Don't be. Give it time, the equipment you've been coveting shall be yours. :) Before the time comes, try to get as many good sounding records/CDs as you can afford.

    BTW, the sound is more important than the look but the good look of great sounding equipment certainly doesn't hurt. Got to listen first before buying, though.
     
  20. mazort

    mazort New Member

    Location:
    San Antone
    My Two Cents on Phono Stages

    I have a phono stage built into my Audio Note M2 Phono preamp, but I recently upgraded to one of the new low output moving magnet cartridges from Grado named The Statement. Iwent through a pretty thorough search and considered a lot of phono stages. It seems there are a lot of them around these days since fewer and fewer preamps are sold with their own internal phono stages. One thing to consider is in the future you may want to upgrade to a low output cartridge, all of which are moving coils except for the new Grados. In that case you'll need a phono preamp with enough gain to handle one.

    The other issue which I gave a lot of thought to which some of the other postings address is the availability of service and support - you may buy a great product but how sure are you parts and service will be available long into the future?

    Since my vinyl system is tube-based I also wanted a phono stage with the little glowing bottles.

    I decided on an Audio Research PH3SE taking all that into account and it's been one of the happiest audiophile purchases I've ever made. It's really smooth and musical. It uses tubes and j-fets. I was advised by John Grado to avoid step-up transformers since the design goal of the low output cartridge series was to remove turns of wire from the coil inside the cartridge and he hoped then I wasn't going to run the signal through more coils of wire on the front end of the preamp. Make of that what you will but since I bought his cartridge I listened to what he said.

    The PH3SE is the special edition version that uses more fancy-schmancy parts. After reading a lot of postings on audio asylum and other reviews it really sounded like it was worth the extra money. You can get a straight PH3 upgraded later but it will cost more.

    I'm really happy with the sound I'm getting and feel the Grado and PH3SE have really taken it to a new level of definition and tone and timbre that is musically much more accurate and that's why I wrote this posting since it sounds like you're going down a similar path and mine had a happy ending. The PH3SE isn't cheap but taking it all into account you get what you pay for IMO.
     
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