mating a phono tube preamp....

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840wolf

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mating a phono tube preamp....
« on: 17 Feb 2018, 10:36 am »
After hearing of NuPrime a couple years ago at TAKES, the sound I heard never left me. Awesome. Then having a short audition again a very short while ago, this is what I want. My dilema is, can I mate my Audio Research SP 14 preamp with NuPrime amps, if I could afford a complete system,i would definitely take that route, but financially, I can only go halfway for now. I am deciding between, SP 9 bridged as monos,or ST 10, or Ref 20s, I am totally Exited to hear of the new Ref Evolutions, they sound like they will be something very special.

840wolf

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Re: mating a phono tube preamp....
« Reply #1 on: 17 Feb 2018, 10:41 am »
Oops, not *TAKES* should have been *TAVES*. Darn auto correct on the BlackBerry

JackD

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Re: mating a phono tube preamp....
« Reply #2 on: 18 Feb 2018, 04:21 am »
Sure you can match it with Nuprime amps but with the SP14's 20 db gain you might have a noise issue and little flexibility on the volume control.

rustydoglim

Re: mating a phono tube preamp....
« Reply #3 on: 18 Feb 2018, 07:23 am »
You should wait another 7 weeks for the Reference Evolution (shipping end of March).  We have been very consistent in naming and ranking our products over the years, with no hype. I have listened to this new amp and it is really something. Price wise, what can I say, keeps coming down. Few people have heard amps with 1M Ohm input impedance because in the past such an amp (if it is well designed) would cost way too much and practically non existence.

840wolf

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Re: mating a phono tube preamp....
« Reply #4 on: 18 Feb 2018, 09:43 am »
Thanks JackD, that's the kind of stuff I need to know, I've been away from audio and my setup has been packed up for about 25yrs. Now that I'm retired, I now have time to get back into this hobby that I've been missing. Looking at the specs for the SP14 ,which I really wanted to use more for it's phone stage than line stage, the gain for phono is 66db, am I correct to assume I will have even more noise and less flexibility on volume control?

840wolf

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Re: mating a phono tube preamp....
« Reply #5 on: 18 Feb 2018, 09:53 am »
Thanks rustydoglim, I will most definitely wait to hear them before I make any kind of decision, and if "price wise, keeps coming down" I might very well be a very happy camper.

JackD

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Re: mating a phono tube preamp....
« Reply #6 on: 18 Feb 2018, 04:34 pm »
The gain on the phono preamp won't help matters but in the end the issue may be the overall gain of the preamp itself.  You can mitigate it though by using something like the Rothwell attenuators. 

840wolf

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Re: mating a phono tube preamp....
« Reply #7 on: 19 Feb 2018, 12:24 am »
Thank you JackD for the Rothwell attenuators, I think they would do the trick, not too sure how they would affect the sonics but definitely a viable option. and....which brings me to an admittance of embarrassment of how much I have forgotten about audio over the years, in trying to bring myself up to speed, I discovered, I should have known this, but my SP14 has an attenuation switch on the face, to adjust the gain, 0db to -24db. :duh:. my next step is to bring it in to a tech and have the caps and power supply thoroughly checked out.