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Do not fear the Vista! I'm a hardcore tube guy myself, and I happily listened to the Vista for several years. It is EXCELLENT! It's not shouty, hard, edgy, bright or like typical cheap SS in any way. Dynamic and fast, smooth and musical, good inner detail.Never heard the Bellari, but I'd still bet the Vista beats it. I believe I've come across that comparo several times on the audio boards, and Vista comes out ahead.
Guy:Let me get this straight: the TT is packed away until next year? You'll be spinning records again next year?Paul
Guy 13I am basically a tube guy myself, except in phono stages. The only quiet tube phono stage I have found are the ones by Music Reference. I currently run the Vista into a SS preamp and then to a tube amp and get the best of both worlds. From my experience too many tube units stacked one after the other can lead to a lot of unwanted noise. The Vista gives you almost limitless flexibility for loading and gain and if you need lower capacitance have Boris build your unit with lower values like I did. As to the Grado's, I would just order a basic Black unit and then order the 8MZ stylus, which is superior to the stylus in the Gold. Needle Doctor and LP Gear are the only dealers for the 8MZ stylus. This way you have a great cartridge stylus combo and a spare stylus for less than your budget.Jack
Don't worry, most all of us have done something stupid with a cartridge. They're so delicate it's easy to make a mistake in handling.I would suggest one of the Grado Prestige models. You can pick any price you want to, they just go up in refinement as the price goes up, the basic sound is the same. And you can upgrade at any time by purchasing a stylus assembly a few models higher, they're interchangeable.
Vista Audio has a circle here. See all the comments, and comparos to other budget phono stages. Boris lives local to me, been to his house a few times. One of the nicer guys in audio.http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?board=123.0
Well your Benz Micro Gold could be configured on the Vista and would sound excellent I'm sure of it.Everything I have thrown at the Vista Phono is nice, nice, nice! I doubt very much you would be sending it back. I have read the Bellari is prone to noise too, and we all know Grado's humm. The Bellari is not exactly the "tube" sound.I had a Grado Platinum Ref on my P5, and yup it hummed. It sounded pretty much exactly like an SAE 1000e that was completely quiet.Grado's hum is so bad there is a data base on Audio Karma that list the tables Grado cartridge combinations that do hum.Oh, ALWAYS use the stylus covers
Grado hum database on Audio Karma. No registration needed to view it. http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=209233
It will hum on a P3.Wayner
Guy,The hum is caused by the unshielded motor of the P3. I know because I owned one and the combo just does not work. I too hate hum. I suggest you look at a Ortofon red or blue or maybe even an AT440MLa. they will work nicely with the RB300 arm and not hum at all.Of course Rega sells their own branded cartridges like the Bias or Elys 2.The Ortofon 2M red is only $99 and has gotten some good press/awards.
The P3 actually does have a grounding wire, It's built into one of the interconnect cables (I remember it on the left one). Anyway if you examine your interconnect cable, you will notice that one of them has another, thin wire along side of it. That is the ground wire and it attaches internally to the RCA shield connector.Wayner
I just looked at my RB-300 arm. The arm is grounded in the arm structure, so you will not see a wire (I confused it with a couple of other tables), but nonetheless if you take a DMM to the arm metal and your preamp, you will get ground continuity, as the ground is connected to one of the channels RCA shields (like an AR table).Wayner
