I've done a whole lot of comparing & experimenting, and I've never had an instance where simplifying the signal path didn't result in better transparency, openness and purity. External step up devices and the extra interconnect needed = a more complex signal path. However, PS Audio are specialists in this kind of thing, building phono amplification is what put them on the map, and if their product is good enough and superior enough, (which I suspect it is), you may very well still come out ahead in sound quality. I would fish around for a real good interconnect though. You don't have to go ultra expensive to find a good one. Some claim to be going high end moving magnet cartridge over moving coil. I don't have experience with real expensive moving magnet. Maybe a good thing to do, if you're in the market for an expensive phono cartridge, would be to try to find out from a company that builds both moving coil and moving magnet cartridges, if their moving magnet cartridges really do compete sonically with their moving coils. I'd rather get things right from the horse's mouth. At the price ranges I've dabbled in, moving coils sound like superior cartridges.
I still own over a dozen high quality low output mc cartridges, haven’t used them in a few years. Since Grado introduced their Legacy lineup I’ve spent most vinyl listening w/my Epoch MI cartridge and DS Audio optical cartridge. The only MC cartridge I use is a Lyra mono cartridge on mono albums. That Lyra, like most modern MC cartridges, has much higher output than my old Lyra’s, ET, Benz, Shelter and Koetsu’s. I would start by confirming output of your cartridge, if it’s >0.7mV, you typically do not need a traditional MC input or step up device. Most of my old MC cartridges are 0.25mV. As long as MM input is at or near 50db’s a 0.7mV or higher MC cartridge goes straight into MM input w/o issue. I have no experience w/Lindahl, but have used ET’s, EAR’s, S&B’s and Audio Notes. I respectfully disagree w/Paul suggesting ANY MC circuit outperforms a quality MC step up into a MM input. I’ve NEVER found that to be the case. The Japanese Audio Note (Kondo) silver step up is the best step up made and will outperform any MC input circuit as long as a quality MM circuit is available. I completely agree that A-B testing is the best determinant.
What people forget is those transformers take the 300µV to 500µV from MC increasing to 2mV to 3mV - then one still needs the MM stage with the correction curve (that's where the filter is) to produce the 150mV to send into the preamplifier ... so it is still part solid state anyway ...it's not all passive. I made the personal choice to move away from MC and live with the top end of MM instead. Then the last specification that some ignore and isnt in the datasheets... "Cost/Benefit ratio" on MC isnt a good one. These days the top end MMs are as good as top end MC's.
What moving magnet cartridges specifically, are as good as any moving coil? We'd like to know that. I know that Clearaudio makes a very expensive MM cartridge called the Clearaudio Charisma. Would they say its as good as one of their similarly priced moving coil models? What moving coil (make and model) are as good as top moving coils? I'd like to buy one.
@@sidesup8286 That's down to personal taste, preference and your set up -- its easy for me running a hifi shop making lots of comparisions over the years, steering away from the prestige pricing and hype. My fav at the moment is Sumiko's Amythist...100's of other options. Plus I prefer dispensing with the extra high gain an MC needs. MC Cost/micro benefit for me compared to a decent MM doesnt do it anymore.
Thank you, I'll have to check out that Sumiko cartridge. I was using a Sumiko Talisman S Moving Coil back in the 1980s. It had a rising high end. Do MCs still do that, or are they tamer now? It was so pure and clean though, that the overabundant high end still sounded silky smooth. No grain or unpleasantness, just sounded like more highs and I liked it. The tone colors and detail were incredible. Compared to a cheaper Audio Technics MC, it lacked a bit everywhere but the AT cartridge focused better. Like the Accuphase AC 1 cartridge. Sumiko had a totl MC cartridge later in the 1980s called the Sumiko Virtuoso Dti. It was known for having the best high end of any cartridge back then. In fact it was beautiful everywhere, except at checkout, where it was $1200.
@@sidesup8286 A while back I had the Cadenza Blue (£1600) in the showroom. Then a customer asked me to nail the Amythist (£620) on to his Linn Ittok/LP12 ...and I was stunned at how it handled and I've not looked back; everything from massive Cathedral organ, Jazz, classical piano, Dire Straits studio albums and even Pink Floyd live. I've moved away from the eye watering values that MCs command against the return. To me - some can sound a little glassy , no bad thing if using transformers (2πFL) or load to 100 Ω if too sparkly on solid state. I've not had the pleasure of the Talisman though....and being a vintage fan I might look out for one. 👍
Thanks for the video Paul! I've had thoughts of trying a SUT. I have the Stellar Phono and I'm using the MC input. I love the sound but would a SUT using the MM input be better? Thanks for answering the question I wondered about.
What people do not seem to realize with mediums like records, tapes, cds, blurays and dvds is that they are physical media and once you buy them they are yours to keep. The popularity of streamers, Netflix etc, nothing belongs to consumers, the artists etc. The companies you subscribe to own everything and they can make stuff disappear if they don't make a buck. So think before you subscribe or buy that expensive streamer
Yes and as everyone who has disposed of dozens of cds and cassettes that got maybe 20 listens (for only favorite tracks) knows is that streaming is much more efficient. You pay only for what you use, the all in cost is far cheaper (a good streamer dac can be had for $500- the cost of 10 albums), the sound doesn’t degrade like physical media and the music doesn’t take up any space. There are reasons to own CDs and records, but there are excellent reasons to stream as well.
@@edd2771 You missed my point entirely. Streaming is not something permanent. Many songs and movies will be deleted when profits die down. The companies are taking control of songs and movies away from artists, producers and the consumers
@@artyfhartie2269…and you missed mine. The need for permanence is not there. We don’t continuously and forever listen to the media we have as it is. We ultimately discard it, and if we calculated the cost per listen of even favorite tracks it would be very expensive vs streaming. And the vast majority of offerings will not be deleted. Storage space is insanely cheap, making it economic for a Streaming service to justify keeping the data on the file if the item attracts even one customer. And for rare/obscure items that you fear will be deleted, buy them, put them on a drive, and run them through your dac. There are many good reasons to own physical media. Fear of impermanence is not one of them.
. Today companies to whom people subscribe are in position of music listeners from 70 ties because they own physicaly all tracks. Subscribents do not have own collections- so the mental tie with short time used track in case of no more access better to be not made. Like my song which was unsxpectedly for me published long time ago. It made me happy and proud to exist in company of best in the history - next year internet address was gone . Of course I still have that memorable for me recording - OWN.
Actually, you must choose a SUT to suit the amplifier as well as the cartridge. My cart recommends 30db, however to match my amplifier, 1:20 is more than adequate. Too much gain can cause problems.
I think it is a bold statement to say that an active electronic circuit is better *by far* than a Lundall (hardly an economy solution) step-up transformer. For sure the transformer solution is more expensive, and I think that is the real reason it is not popular as OEM solution. I would say it is up to personal taste which of the two sounds better. With the caveat that finding an MM phono stage as good as good as the top tier MC phono stages out there is not going to be easy. But that is not the fault of the step-up transformer.
I design amplifiers and you're right... for solid state active circuitry to not inject noise - harmonic distortion and other illnesses that tranformers dont produce, its a bold statement against passives. Where transformers let themselves down is uniform gain bandwidth across the whole frequency spectrum , core losses, no two transformers perform identically ....and the big one for me - "cost /benefit ratio". ...I ask my customers are you getting that much for the cost ? some do what I do and stick to the top quailty MM carts.
Just a note here, no transformer can perform gain. In fact any transformer has a loss. A transformer trades voltage for current or vice versa. But the power or energy cannot be increased, that would mean creating energy from nothing! So an MC transformer just trades some of the MC current for more voltage. But overall it does have an energy loss, not gain.
Well....technically, you're correct in that everything takes energy but the same can be said for an active amplifier circuit too. Our definition of gain is probably too broad for you so maybe we just say voltage gain or amplification. Regardless of what we call it or how it is achieved, most MC transformers have the quality to them like this: put in 1mv and at the output of the MC xfomer you get 30mv. That's gain. No, it is not free. Nothing is. I appreciate any corrections when I get things wrong but, on the other hand, there's also value in trying to keep this simple so people understand a device's function. Anywasy, I don't mean to lecture and always value your insights. Thanks, Andy.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio an active circuit gets energy from its power supply, thus it can output more power than what it gets at its signal input. A passive circuit cannot do that by definition.
Correct, but we're not saying there's more power. There is more voltage. Small voltage in, big voltage out. Less power, yes, but gain can be either voltage or current or both.@@razisn
Be careful with this one - - speaking directly from experience - I'm running a very decent analogue front end, reference for my limited budget - - including a pre-amp that's fairly decent imo (ARC PhoneRef3SE) - - if ya not playing with SUT's you probably won't miss anything - - get into a reference SUT, particularly one that's matched to your MC, you should be very pleasantly surprised - there's a reason why Art Dudley (RIP) and the like are into SUT's, I'm sorry I waited so long getting into them myself, for me, and I'm not measuring anything, but, it seems like the cartridge itself see's more appropriate loading, everything sings and I'm not talking about volume, there is no sense that the cartridge is "loaded" down, again, that's a sense, not a measurement, but it's how the sound seems to develop to my ears with my SUT in the mix - I'm running the Audio-Technica ART1000 MC matched with Audio-Technica's SUT1000 Step Up Transformer, honestly, the diminishing return thing, well, that is a fairly costly layout for me but I'm being completely honest when I say that I couldn't possibly go back. Just sayin'.
Paul, never really gives you a straight answer, unless it's promoting his product. The topics are very provocative but the answers are usually add more to a confusion. Good salesmanship though.
Definitely agree the Stellar Phono Pre-AMP is superb !
I've done a whole lot of comparing & experimenting, and I've never had an instance where simplifying the signal path didn't result in better transparency, openness and purity. External step up devices and the extra interconnect needed = a more complex signal path. However, PS Audio are specialists in this kind of thing, building phono amplification is what put them on the map, and if their product is good enough and superior enough, (which I suspect it is), you may very well still come out ahead in sound quality. I would fish around for a real good interconnect though. You don't have to go ultra expensive to find a good one.
Some claim to be going high end moving magnet cartridge over moving coil. I don't have experience with real expensive moving magnet. Maybe a good thing to do, if you're in the market for an expensive phono cartridge, would be to try to find out from a company that builds both moving coil and moving magnet cartridges, if their moving magnet cartridges really do compete sonically with their moving coils. I'd rather get things right from the horse's mouth. At the price ranges I've dabbled in, moving coils sound like superior cartridges.
I still own over a dozen high quality low output mc cartridges, haven’t used them in a few years. Since Grado introduced their Legacy lineup I’ve spent most vinyl listening w/my Epoch MI cartridge and DS Audio optical cartridge. The only MC cartridge I use is a Lyra mono cartridge on mono albums. That Lyra, like most modern MC cartridges, has much higher output than my old Lyra’s, ET, Benz, Shelter and Koetsu’s. I would start by confirming output of your cartridge, if it’s >0.7mV, you typically do not need a traditional MC input or step up device. Most of my old MC cartridges are 0.25mV. As long as MM input is at or near 50db’s a 0.7mV or higher MC cartridge goes straight into MM input w/o issue.
I have no experience w/Lindahl, but have used ET’s, EAR’s, S&B’s and Audio Notes. I respectfully disagree w/Paul suggesting ANY MC circuit outperforms a quality MC step up into a MM input. I’ve NEVER found that to be the case. The Japanese Audio Note (Kondo) silver step up is the best step up made and will outperform any MC input circuit as long as a quality MM circuit is available.
I completely agree that A-B testing is the best determinant.
What people forget is those transformers take the 300µV to 500µV from MC increasing to 2mV to 3mV - then one still needs the MM stage with the correction curve (that's where the filter is) to produce the 150mV to send into the preamplifier ... so it is still part solid state anyway ...it's not all passive. I made the personal choice to move away from MC and live with the top end of MM instead. Then the last specification that some ignore and isnt in the datasheets... "Cost/Benefit ratio" on MC isnt a good one. These days the top end MMs are as good as top end MC's.
What moving magnet cartridges specifically, are as good as any moving coil? We'd like to know that. I know that Clearaudio makes a very expensive MM cartridge called the Clearaudio Charisma. Would they say its as good as one of their similarly priced moving coil models? What moving coil (make and model) are as good as top moving coils? I'd like to buy one.
@@sidesup8286 That's down to personal taste, preference and your set up -- its easy for me running a hifi shop making lots of comparisions over the years, steering away from the prestige pricing and hype. My fav at the moment is Sumiko's Amythist...100's of other options. Plus I prefer dispensing with the extra high gain an MC needs. MC Cost/micro benefit for me compared to a decent MM doesnt do it anymore.
Thank you, I'll have to check out that Sumiko cartridge. I was using a Sumiko Talisman S Moving Coil back in the 1980s. It had a rising high end. Do MCs still do that, or are they tamer now? It was so pure and clean though, that the overabundant high end still sounded silky smooth. No grain or unpleasantness, just sounded like more highs and I liked it. The tone colors and detail were incredible. Compared to a cheaper Audio Technics MC, it lacked a bit everywhere but the AT cartridge focused better. Like the Accuphase AC 1 cartridge. Sumiko had a totl MC cartridge later in the 1980s called the Sumiko Virtuoso Dti. It was known for having the best high end of any cartridge back then. In fact it was beautiful everywhere, except at checkout, where it was $1200.
@@sidesup8286 A while back I had the Cadenza Blue (£1600) in the showroom. Then a customer asked me to nail the Amythist (£620) on to his Linn Ittok/LP12 ...and I was stunned at how it handled and I've not looked back; everything from massive Cathedral organ, Jazz, classical piano, Dire Straits studio albums and even Pink Floyd live. I've moved away from the eye watering values that MCs command against the return. To me - some can sound a little glassy , no bad thing if using transformers (2πFL) or load to 100 Ω if too sparkly on solid state. I've not had the pleasure of the Talisman though....and being a vintage fan I might look out for one. 👍
Thanks for the video Paul! I've had thoughts of trying a SUT. I have the Stellar Phono and I'm using the MC input. I love the sound but would a SUT using the MM input be better? Thanks for answering the question I wondered about.
What people do not seem to realize with mediums like records, tapes, cds, blurays and dvds is that they are physical media and once you buy them they are yours to keep. The popularity of streamers, Netflix etc, nothing belongs to consumers, the artists etc. The companies you subscribe to own everything and they can make stuff disappear if they don't make a buck. So think before you subscribe or buy that expensive streamer
Yes and as everyone who has disposed of dozens of cds and cassettes that got maybe 20 listens (for only favorite tracks) knows is that streaming is much more efficient. You pay only for what you use, the all in cost is far cheaper (a good streamer dac can be had for $500- the cost of 10 albums), the sound doesn’t degrade like physical media and the music doesn’t take up any space. There are reasons to own CDs and records, but there are excellent reasons to stream as well.
@@edd2771 You missed my point entirely. Streaming is not something permanent. Many songs and movies will be deleted when profits die down. The companies are taking control of songs and movies away from artists, producers and the consumers
@@artyfhartie2269…and you missed mine. The need for permanence is not there. We don’t continuously and forever listen to the media we have as it is. We ultimately discard it, and if we calculated the cost per listen of even favorite tracks it would be very expensive vs streaming. And the vast majority of offerings will not be deleted. Storage space is insanely cheap, making it economic for a
Streaming service to justify keeping the data on the file if the item attracts even one customer. And for rare/obscure items that you fear will be deleted, buy them, put them on a drive, and run them through your dac. There are many good reasons to own physical media. Fear of impermanence is not one of them.
That happened to me. One album that I "ordered" is now gone.
. Today companies to whom people subscribe are in position of music listeners from 70 ties because they own physicaly all tracks. Subscribents do not have own collections- so the mental tie with short time used track in case of no more access better to be not made. Like my song which was unsxpectedly for me published long time ago. It made me happy and proud to exist in company of best in the history - next year internet address was gone . Of course I still have that memorable for me recording - OWN.
Yup mine pioneer preamp from 80s uses 2 step up transformers. It was unusuall even in 80s
Damn, I have to use my ear? Paul, I’d rather use one of yours as it is probably more reliable.😊
Actually, you must choose a SUT to suit the amplifier as well as the cartridge. My cart recommends 30db, however to match my amplifier, 1:20 is more than adequate. Too much gain can cause problems.
喺真的 多隻香爐多隻鬼 還有放大倍率 捉hum 一大堆問題 mc 還會使用一段時間後一邊聲道無聲 剛硬的聲音等 你受得了折騰嗎？
I think it is a bold statement to say that an active electronic circuit is better *by far* than a Lundall (hardly an economy solution) step-up transformer. For sure the transformer solution is more expensive, and I think that is the real reason it is not popular as OEM solution. I would say it is up to personal taste which of the two sounds better. With the caveat that finding an MM phono stage as good as good as the top tier MC phono stages out there is not going to be easy. But that is not the fault of the step-up transformer.
I design amplifiers and you're right... for solid state active circuitry to not inject noise - harmonic distortion and other illnesses that tranformers dont produce, its a bold statement against passives. Where transformers let themselves down is uniform gain bandwidth across the whole frequency spectrum , core losses, no two transformers perform identically ....and the big one for me - "cost /benefit ratio". ...I ask my customers are you getting that much for the cost ? some do what I do and stick to the top quailty MM carts.
What about current mode (Transimpedance) phono stages for low impedance MC cartridge's?
Just a note here, no transformer can perform gain. In fact any transformer has a loss. A transformer trades voltage for current or vice versa. But the power or energy cannot be increased, that would mean creating energy from nothing! So an MC transformer just trades some of the MC current for more voltage. But overall it does have an energy loss, not gain.
Well....technically, you're correct in that everything takes energy but the same can be said for an active amplifier circuit too. Our definition of gain is probably too broad for you so maybe we just say voltage gain or amplification. Regardless of what we call it or how it is achieved, most MC transformers have the quality to them like this: put in 1mv and at the output of the MC xfomer you get 30mv. That's gain. No, it is not free. Nothing is. I appreciate any corrections when I get things wrong but, on the other hand, there's also value in trying to keep this simple so people understand a device's function. Anywasy, I don't mean to lecture and always value your insights. Thanks, Andy.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio an active circuit gets energy from its power supply, thus it can output more power than what it gets at its signal input. A passive circuit cannot do that by definition.
Correct, but we're not saying there's more power. There is more voltage. Small voltage in, big voltage out. Less power, yes, but gain can be either voltage or current or both.@@razisn
Be careful with this one - - speaking directly from experience - I'm running a very decent analogue front end, reference for my limited budget - - including a pre-amp that's fairly decent imo (ARC PhoneRef3SE) - - if ya not playing with SUT's you probably won't miss anything - - get into a reference SUT, particularly one that's matched to your MC, you should be very pleasantly surprised - there's a reason why Art Dudley (RIP) and the like are into SUT's, I'm sorry I waited so long getting into them myself, for me, and I'm not measuring anything, but, it seems like the cartridge itself see's more appropriate loading, everything sings and I'm not talking about volume, there is no sense that the cartridge is "loaded" down, again, that's a sense, not a measurement, but it's how the sound seems to develop to my ears with my SUT in the mix - I'm running the Audio-Technica ART1000 MC matched with Audio-Technica's SUT1000 Step Up Transformer, honestly, the diminishing return thing, well, that is a fairly costly layout for me but I'm being completely honest when I say that I couldn't possibly go back. Just sayin'.
Paul, never really gives you a straight answer, unless it's promoting his product. The topics are very provocative but the answers are usually add more to a confusion. Good salesmanship though.