phono stage / cartridge "incompatibility"?

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RustyG

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phono stage / cartridge "incompatibility"?
« on: 28 Jan 2011, 10:01 pm »
hi all,

I know most of you will think that this is a newbie question. And it is actually, or almost ;)

I just renewed the electronic part of my setup buying a bargain Pioneer integrated amp + tuner + CD. everything plays very well, and I'm fully satisfied by those elements.

The only issue I have is the pretty poor quality of the phono entry, whereas it's supposed to be something like  "audiophile" quality.

The amp is a A-A9-J (european name - I think it's known as Elite SX-A9-J on north american market...).
The table is a Rega P1 with a nagaoka MP-110 cartridge.

This table (with this cartridge) played very well on several other amps I tried recently, from quite good hardware to 40 or 30 years old vintage integrated amps!

On the brand new Pioneer, the sound is really poor, breathless, flat... awful! I tried to plug the TT to a Cambridge 640p pre-amp, itself plugged in the AUX line entry from the amplifier, it was quite good.

The Pioneer is supposed to also supports MC cartridges, which usually is sign of a certain quality, or at least a certain effort made on the phono stage by the manufacturer, but in this case, it's just not usable at all.

I can't imagine that this phono entry is that poor that I'd have to buy an external pre-amp to play my records with it!

Any advice???

Thanks!

TheChairGuy

Re: phono stage / cartridge "incompatibility"?
« Reply #1 on: 29 Jan 2011, 12:41 am »
Rusty - I own the Pioneer Elite SX-A9-J stereo receiver in the US.  It's packaged as an integrated in the UK (maybe Europe) at much higher prices than the US gets as a receiver (essentially, AM/FM added to your product).

I use only as a tuner/preamp...as the amplifier section is so-so. at best..I run mono tube amps from the preamp out jacks :thumb:

I adore this product - as you should.....but, the amp portion is underwhelming if you are using this way. The star is the preamp section, including MM...the heart of any system I feel.

Getting MM phono to sound great with it takes doing two things:

1.  Depress the 'Direct' button on the face of your amp or from remote.  Depressing 'Direct' switches out all unneeded equalization out of the circuit for the cleanest sound and straightest path possible.

2.  If you have a dimmer control on the integrated (the receiver version does) set to off (it's three position - hi, lo and off).  The off position eliminates one more distortion element and lets phono shine.

Let those true dual mono architecture and wonderful twin toroids work their wonders on the most direct path possible with your MM cartridges and you will be rewarded with great sound for benign expenditures  :thumb:

The MC section is listless sounding.  It sounds better with a quality step-up...active or passive...if you want to use low output cartridges with it.