external phono pre

The Fuxtor

Addicted Member
Just curious if anyone has compared external phono pre's to Fishers onboard? I have a late model 400, and for kicks I hooked up an Advent 300 i recapped to hear its phono stage. I ran the Advent thru the Fishers tape monitor and seems to work quite well!! Hard to compare the difference without a switch of some sort, but it definitely doesn't sound worse? I did recently just upgrade my phono tubes to some nice nos Sylvanias which sound good too!
 
A lot of factors involved--what cart/TT/stylus are you using?--and what do you want to hear?--I use a couple external phono preamps with preamps that are known to have "competent" phono preamps built in--the externals just have more "flexibility" regarding gain, impedance matching and capacitance loading--the RIAA equalization curve should be the same, but those other factors can make a big difference, and "adjustability" can provide a world of options.
 
I have read about the Advent 300 phono stage which stoked my curiosity, interesting to hear others reasons.
Can a Fishers high phono output be used for moving coil cartridge?
 
You'll need a MC preamp. The High input was for "Very High output MM carts (above 6mv) and ceramic carts with adapters for magnetic inputs"., per the manual See page 5 of ownrs manual. Dave G did a thread on the PHONO Preamps in/on the Fishers READ ABOUT IT HERE......
The Fisher Phono Preamp, and RIAA
 
I was just going thru Daves post on the improvements he has made for the Fisher 400 phono! Nice job once again!!
( just curious, but what ever happened to Sony6060??) He seemed like quite a force in knowledge around here at one time....
 
He was banned for unknown reasons. Not something to be discussed in open forum. And NO I DO NOT KNOW why he was banned.
 
I bought a Dynaco PAT-4 pre ($10 at GW) for just that reason. My big living room Onkyo rcvr didn't have phono ability and I wanted to play LP's at a time when we were moving. It worked fine but in later years I spiffed it up with update stuff from "updatemydynaco"(no affiliation) and now it sounds awesome. I really don't believe in recommending stuff but in my experience it worked.
 
I bought a Dynaco PAT-4 pre ($10 at GW) for just that reason. My big living room Onkyo rcvr didn't have phono ability and I wanted to play LP's at a time when we were moving. It worked fine but in later years I spiffed it up with update stuff from "updatemydynaco"(no affiliation) and now it sounds awesome. I really don't believe in recommending stuff but in my experience it worked.
I would love to find a PAT-4 for 10 bucks!!!
 
I would love to find a PAT-4 for 10 bucks!!!

Not any more. Anything phono is going for almost $100. Really crazy how stuff is going up. The conjunction of great new equipment to play and great re-interest in phono stuff. Just look at turntables. Only a few bucks 5 years ago now going for near $85-$100 minimum.
 
Starting in the 1970s, there was a magazine, The Audio Critic by Peter Aczel. He mentioned that the Advent 300 phono stage was outstanding. Later, I learned that it is a variant of a Tomlinson Holman design.
 
There are still occasionally deals to be found in phono stages if you don't mind slightly odd gear. I bought a Garrard MRM-1, their "music recovery module" for 35 bucks a couple years ago. Its a scratch and pop eliminator, which sounds dreadful but the phono preamp is actually rated as being very good. I shut the noise canceling switch off and it works perfectly fine.

The other one I have is a phono preamp from a radio station that NaptownRob gave me. That also sounded quite good, and when I saw them pop up on ebay they sold for fairly short money. It needs a re-cap now though, it picked up a power supply hum. Its extremely industrial looking, meant to be mounted in a gear rack and never looked at. Built like a tank, both in terms of the thick chassis and relative ease of service. The op-amps are all socketed, and if you dig up the manual it has a lot of detail about the inner workings of the thing.
 
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