middleaudio.com

Firstly, let me disclose my belief that "audiophilia" should be recognized as a legitimate mental illness. It's not that I don't appreciate good sound; I just don't seem to have the magical capacity to hear "sonic purity" or "silky musicality" that others might.

To give some background as to how I came about this, I'm currently re-setting up a project studio out here in BC. I'm trying to set up my rig so that my day to day music listening is going through the same speakers as my mixing. For my record player, I figured all I need is a phono preamp to boost the signal to line level. I could then send it to my firepod's input, which would go to my powered monitors. Sounds easy right? I was ballparking 50-100 bucks for my budget on this component, if that.

I shit you not, this was on the first page of google's search results for "buy affordable phono stage": http://www.avguide.com/buyers-guide/buy ... ono-stages

These are some of my favorite quotes:

"the Nano sweetens up the Atlanta Brass ensemble to such an extent that it almost sounds velvety and rounded"

"On balance the Phonomena was a bit more romantic, the Slee a bit more cerebral."

"My “control” phonostage for this survey was the well-regarded JR Transrotor Phono II, which at $1500 is not outrageously expensive either."


Awesome

I'm also a big opponent of audio-phoolery. One of the biggest gripes I have with them is that through their hyberbole they actually minimize good quality gear which is a requirement for great sound. Not by enhancing the audio with silky smooth, cerebral, bottom crunching lows, but by (usually) passing audio as cleanly and unchanged as possible. I find it really interesting that most audiophiles claim to want to hear the most exacting representation of audio, yet spend thousands on gear that outright claims to modify the sound.

Anyways if you want a great quality no nonsense phono pre check out the Radial J33 It's more expensive than your stated budget but it'll last longer than you do, and do a fine job the entire time. Radial stuff goes on sale from time to time, so you should be able to find one in the $150 range, or maybe a little less used, although I don't think I've seen too many on the used market, since they're fairly niche.

I saw the radial package in my research. It seems like a solid, no nonsense unit which is what I'm going for. It may be a bit more feature rich than I need, but it's 10 times less expensive then the "not outrageously expensive" preamp described in the article.

I'm actually leaning toward this right now: http://www.phonopreamps.com/tc750lcpp.html . It seems to have good all-around reviews from people with normal ears. I'll just need 2 rca to 1/4 cables and I'm in business.

I don't even know where to start with bashing audiophile nonsense right now... Andrew?

Malcolm. I noticed you aren't getting much crystalline shimmer when you type your lower-case letters. You might want to consider upgrading to a better keyboard. Look at alphabetic as opposed to qwerty because of it's chronologically analogous circuitry.

Ditto on he J33, I bought one to do transfers, it works perfect.

A.