[Kyle_C]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Bugle as well as other fine phono stages are able to handle clicks and pops better than inferior designs. Did I imagine that? Can a preamp reduce the audibility of clicks and pops while reproducing the rest of waveform more accurately than lesser preamps? If so, how does it accomplish this? I swear that clicks and pops are less noticeable (and the sound quality much better, of course) with my Bugle than with the phono section of my Pioneer receiver. Thanks for any info on this.

[hagtech]

It's a matter of linear headroom.  What happens in a feedback type phonostage is that a tic or pop will drive the circuit out of loop (loss of feedback control, sort of like clipping), which it then has to recover from.  As a result, high frequency overload conditions are greatly exaggerated.  Worse yet, is that when open loop, there is a corresponding loss of all other musical information.  The BUGLE is designed to amplify the tics and pops as they are, yet not go open loop, the music continuing in parallel.  Of course, there is a limit to this, where the BUGLE will eventually clip.  The CORNET achieves the same thing, but has much softer clipping during overloads.

jh

[Kyle_C]

Oops, forgot about this one. Thanks for the reply, Jim.

One more question. Does the "out of loop" effect apply to all clicks and pops or just the particularly loud ones?

[hagtech]

Only loud ones.  Stages that use feedback may also have problems on not-so-loud pops and tics dues to slew rate limitations.

jh