Phono Stage for loud rock music

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by mbrewer566, May 16, 2019.

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  1. Sugar Man

    Sugar Man Forum Resident

    Especially for rock. I believe most of the Marshall stacks all the huge bands have used throughout our lifetimes have been solid state, right? Hendrix and Pink Floyd must have used transistors on their tours...C'mon Jimi, you gotta be messing with me.
     
  2. The FRiNgE

    The FRiNgE Forum Resident

    I'm going with the advice of @Strat-Mangler , upgrade the AVR.. quality solid state power will tighten up the bottom end. Mangler is a dedicated Rocker-metal dude who knows his stuff. Any good 50+ wpc amp should be sufficient (you'll be surprised how good, good watts are, at least 2dB headroom and a damping factor greater than 40) such as any Yamaha "Natural Sound" integrated, or even something like a 70's Pioneer SA-8500 or SA-9500 (good phono pre's, BTW) ... or Luxman L-11 if you can find one. (great sounding phono section with 90dB s/n, the power amp features ring emitter devices) I owned the L-11 and the dang thing slams.

    I think also a significant upgrade would be a higher output MM cartridge for rock music, with an elliptical stylus 0.2 x 0.7 mils for decent inner groove tracking. The ADC 230-XE comes to mind which has 8MV output, short cantilever, dynamic as hell. Finding one may be a challenge, as well as a quality replacement stylus.
     
  3. The FRiNgE

    The FRiNgE Forum Resident

    The most popular amps were Fender, Vox, Marshall, HiWatt, Sunn, almost all of which were tube amps. Bass players quickly discovered the advantage of solid state for low end slam, however guitarists stayed with tubes. Jimi used the Marshall Plexi 1959 at 100 watts, with a quartet of EL-34 tubes.. he also liked Sunn because they were the loudest amps around at that time. Contrary to popular belief, Jimi did not get all of his sound from overdriving the amp, in fact they were kept relatively clean. Jimi's tone was in his hands, with the help of a Dallas Arbiter fuzz face, a Wah pedal and Octavia for screaming overtones.

    Also the Univibe ... here is an interesting site I just found
    A detailed look at Jimi Hendrix' pedals and signal chain
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2019
  4. porieux

    porieux plook me now you savage rascal

    Location:
    SF Bay Area
    Isn’t the op already using a 150 watt Yamaha AVR?
     
  5. Sckott

    Sckott Hand Tighten Only.

    Location:
    South Plymouth, Ma
    This.
     
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  6. Sugar Man

    Sugar Man Forum Resident

    Whaaa? Maybe SS amp for bass slam, but the Allnic isn’t the weak link. Again, were Sabbath cranking through SS guitar amps?
     
  7. Burt

    Burt Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kirkwood, MO
    What the kind of guitar amps they used has to do with the phono stage you should use beats me, but I'm going to opine that most headbangers will prefer a good solid state phono section.Among commercially built units I had an APT unit designed by Tomlinson Holman and a Hafler unit and both worked very well although I listened then to little heavy metal, I liked the first two Van Halen albums and Blizzard of Ozz though and they sounded great through them. I was less happy with a McIntosh C28. I also homebrewed first the famous Lampton unit, designed by an astronaut, then a Marantz 7 clone and liked those too. The Lampton had an astringent overview, if you will, headbangers would approve I bet. However, I'm not sure the devices used are still available.

    https://www.ssl.berkeley.edu/~mlampton/LamptonZukauckas.pdf

    Probably an old Hafler is a plug and play solution and they still show up in clean shape reasonably.

    Later McIntosh solid state pre's might be better but the C28 was slow and colored, to me. Their tube units had more appeal to me. The C22 is a clone of the marantz 7.

    i was using Sumiko carts back then for what it was worth, I also had a couple of Grados. They were usually one or two price levels up from the least expensive.
     
  8. The FRiNgE

    The FRiNgE Forum Resident

    Thanks! Just had a look at his info, the Yamaha RX-A3070 does not appear to be "weak link" as the typical AVR would be.
    Its two channel output is rated at 150 wpc, 0.06 THD
    RX-A3070 - Specs - Yamaha - United States

    It is still a good idea I think to investigate other two channel integrated amp options!
     
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  9. Jimi Floyd

    Jimi Floyd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pisa, Italy
    Yeah, they had a lot of phono stages among their gear!
     
  10. russk

    russk Forum Resident

    Location:
    Syracuse NY
    That’s a totally different thing then reproducing music. They also liked their guitar amps to distort. Do people want that character in their home stereo gear?
     
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  11. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    Switch to a SS phono amp, not need to go to a lot of expense.

    Then upgrade the amp, if you feel that it is necessary, which it might not be.
     
  12. Sugar Man

    Sugar Man Forum Resident

    So is the claim among the SS phono crew that the OP's Allnic 1202 is not delivering enough bass signal to his Yamaha? That is one highly regarded phono pre and I'm not aware of any SS phono pre's outgunning it or a Herron in the bass department, much less anywhere else on the spectrum. But I'll gladly do a swap with the OP of my old trusty Monolothic PS-1 SS phono pre for his allegedly bass shy Allnic.
     
  13. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    It's not distortion, it is the type of distortion.

    Any amp will distort when driven into clipping.

    When you drive a SS amp into clipping, the result is extremely harsh awful sound.

    When you drive tubes into clipping, the distort softly. Tube over-driven distortion is a completely different type of sound then SS distortion.
     
  14. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    A 300B amp feeding AN E's. Interesting combination for heavy metal music?
     
  15. Sugar Man

    Sugar Man Forum Resident

    I have a 1981 copy of Gang of Four "Solid Gold." When I play the first track (Paralysed) the kick drum literally rattles the windows. Same result with Avici or Charlie Haden or Dr. Dre. An RP-8 feeding a "modest" Audio Note R Zero II to a 9W Elekit 300b through AN-E AlNiCo's simply rocks and the bass is otherworldly. I'd love to sub in an Allnic or Herron.
     
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  16. The advice to look into replacing your power amp is something to heavily consider. Along with that get a matched pair of RCA 12at7/6201. These tubes are higher gain than what you have in your phonostage now and will give you a more driving sound. There are are a few types of these listed at Brent Jesse. The "SPECIAL! "BUTT UGLY" MATCHED PAIRS 12AT7 RCA Greyplate" look like a low cost way to give the RCA sound a try.
     
  17. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    The Allnic uses the following tube types.

    E180CC/7062
    5654
    7233
     
  18. Yes it does.
     
  19. Larry I

    Larry I Senior Member

    Location:
    Washington, D.C.
    Loud anything requires amplifiers with sufficient gain for the particular speakers one is running. This really does not have anything to do with the phono stage which is doing small signal current to voltage conversion and a little bit of gain. So the best phono stage for any particular person would depend on personal taste, system matching, etc.--all things that are unknowable and not necessarily related to the type of music. This sort of reminds me of a recurring cartoon strip in the National Lampoon named "Underwear for the Deaf."
     
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  20. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    But why mention 12AT7s if his phono stage doesn't use those?
     
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  21. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    We may have a different P.O.V. about what "Rock's" and "otherworldly" bass. :)
     
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  22. Jimi Floyd

    Jimi Floyd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pisa, Italy
    Whoa!
     
  23. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    Maybe some new windows are in order? :)
     
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  24. Chris Schoen

    Chris Schoen Rock 'n Roll !!!

    Location:
    Maryland, U.S.A.
    I use a Hagerman Bugle (with matching power supply) through a Denon SS receiver to Klipsch Heresys. It does ROCK.
     
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  25. Jimi Floyd

    Jimi Floyd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pisa, Italy
    Nah, thin glasses are common in LA
     
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