Hey Cleaton/Derockster,
Probably a better way to get some gain from your phono stage is to have a good tech (hopefully you have one there is sunny Barbados) to lower the level of negative feedback and eek out a few more db gain in your phono stage.
I know
your issue is getting enough gain/volume on phono with your electrostatics
Alternatively, if you have bass and treble controls and don't use them....you can have the tech bypass them (not deactivate or remove them as you might want them in the future) and you will likely add several db to your linestage (which will give you greater gain/volume for CD/Radio and Phono if you need it). Generally, bypassing tone controls adds transparency to your preamp allowing it to act as a higher end one would/could.
I only learned of the two above methods of eeking out additional gain in the last few days...as I have a tech/modder working on an old
Advent 300 (the reason I will need one of Mr. Hagerman's step-ups is that the Advent does not have an MC stage for low output devices) and we found the gain in the current phono section to be a paltry 33db and 15db in the line.
48 db is waaaay to low to amplify teeny phono signals in my system. Bypassing the tone controls added 6db in the line stage in my particular case...and the tech decreased negative feedback and added in another 6db in the phono stage. Total is now 21db (line) and 40 db (phono). This should be sufficient gain for me and my system.
The above are probably less costly and better ways of adding gain to your system - the minimum the Piccolo would allow for is 12db (don't know if Mr. Hagerman would do custom options for less than this if you need
)
As
blakep said in a post in the Vinyl Circle yesterday, getting gain matched to cartridge is really critical part of getting vinyl to sound right. I think the above ways are better to achieve higher gain in your system (or buy the ADC which outputs 20% more than the Grado for $79 or so....but you still may find you need
more gain in your preamp, amp or higher efficiency speakers)
Adding even a high-quality low noise device is probably a next best thing to do after the other options are exhausted. An outboard device adds length to the transmission line and
possible opportunity for noise to reside in your sonic chain. A tech's time in Barbados to do this is probably less cost than $349.00 + shipping from Hawaii. That's how I'd look at it...Mr. Hagerman may have different views that would be great to hear
Sorry for the philosophical wanings Jim....it would be quite cool to hear your thoughts on the subject
Thx, John
