First (and maybe last) phono stage

[Jailtime]

Took me long enough, but I finally found a phono stage that meets my needs. I wanted something versatile enough to handle MM and MC cartridges, and made in North America. This modified Sutherland Engineering PhD should do the trick. It has boards that convert it to a heavily filtered DC supply instead of the original battery power. Socketed resistors allow infinite settings for gain and loading.

Quite a few phono stages fit in the palm of your hand, but this one is 25 lb. Doesn't mean a thing for sound quality, but I like the substantial look. I don't have much listening time on it, but first impressions are favorable. It provides a dead silent background for the music to leap from, and has impressive low level detail retrieval. I'm looking forward to getting some good interconnects for it, the only extra set I had are top notch Walmart cables.

 

[MRL_Audio]

Very cool. The flexibility is very good and should allow a wide range of cartridges. Need to do some research on this one. Thanks for posting.

 

[Mister Pig]

Awesome! Great to hear you are enjoying the new to you phono stage!

Cheers
Mister Pig

 

[Dmitry]

Congrats.
You have to remove the top cover to change the gain settings?
How many phono inputs does it have?

 

[sqlsavior]

I see what you mean.

Congratulations.

 

[Jailtime]

Congrats.
You have to remove the top cover to change the gain settings?
How many phono inputs does it have?

Yup, top cover comes off to change settings. It's a bit of work, since the cover wraps around to the bottom of the unit, so you have to stand it on the face to slide the cover off toward the back. You can see where the resistors would plug in, marked "Gain" and "Load" on the boards. Just one input, and one output.