Curious about the following,
I currently use a phono stage that I designed after reading several Sound Practices articles and Morgan Jones' book on tube amps.
The signal that is produced by a phono cartridge is a naturally balanced signal (not single-ended). Given the low-noise advantages of running a balanced interconnect and staying balanced in the circuitry, I can't help but wonder if the Stevens and Billington phono eq can be used in a balanced mode.
Does anyone know?
If not, I suppose a balanced first gain stage could be used.....then converted to single-ended and run through the EQ.....then reconverted to balanced by using a transformer to split phase.....then fed into a balanced output gain stage of the phono-preamp......and finally passed through a line output transformer to the main preamp.
This is less elegant but would keep most of the path balanced. If this conversion path was used, is there a recommended transformer for the interface between the S&B phono eq and the following gain stage?