Recommendations For A Phono Preamp

Basically what I was told by a guy who had been in the RAF. Recruited at the outbreak on the strength of his pre-war experience in civilian radio.

"They were desperate to get people who knew about superhets. Up to 1939, all aircraft receivers were TRF. None of the RAF "Wireless Mechanics" had ever seen a superhet, and all the American equipment was being fitted to new aircraft."

He finished up in radar, when he let slip that he'd worked on early TV, and knew about multivibrators, blocking oscillators, thyratrons, and things.

As long as we're recommending building one instead of purchasing something:

Not for phone preamps:

Note to audiophiles: These tubes are great for linestage preamps, but generally not phono stages where a very low noise floor is required.

I'm trying to recall what was the favored preamp tube. (Most of the tube stuff I did was for RF). As I vaguely recall, my stash of 12AT7 tubes was pillaged by the office audiophile, so that must be the favored tube. Yeah...

The Leben RS-30EQ phono preamplifier ($2695) incorporates a pair of common dual-triode tubes (12AT7) for phono gain...

I guess transistors and IC's were a step in the wrong direction for audio.

And the birth of the 'Black Box Changers' :(

I repaired some RADAR gear in the '70s, even though my MOS was depot level TV broadcast equipment repair. The RADAR tech was talking down to me, till I told him a RADAR system was just a stripped down TV set. No Aural or Chroma circuits. ;-)

I've never understood the toooob fanatics and their "warm" sound.

I've played high school orchestra and band, and a free-lance jazz band that did "hops" when I was a kid... I know what music should sound like.

After I designed and built my first transistor amplifier I never looked back. ...Jim Thompson

That's part one. Part 2 is at:

Good question. Lots of money has been spent on 'fuzzboxes'. The even harmonic distortion from intermediate stages is much more subtle than outright clipping. And those sounds have their place on occasion. But Les Paul's guitar work is more to my liking.

Old school guitar players used to pull one of the two tubes in a class B output stage to get some really mean sounding buzz.

Yep. I'm a Les Paul/Mary Ford fan.

Ugggh! Didn't that croak the output transformer? ...Jim Thompson

my LP=20

Ah Buzed Twee Ta Git Bessemer OPut Pedance.

?-)