Phono stage importance

Phono stages

One of the things that continually surprises us is how many people are using their cartridge / tonearm output directly into their integrated amplifier or pre-amp (with on board phono stage). This is almost guaranteed to vastly reduce the potential of the moving coil cartridge in comparison to what is achievable through a specialist outboard phono stage. Why is this? When one considers that 95% of the bass amplification for a moving coil cartridge occurs in the phono stage it is easy to understand why. For the midrange 80% of the signal amplification occurs in the phono stage.

The truth is that many integrated amplifiers use little more than a single chip costing all of £1 to carry out this critical function. It is no more than a token so that people can hook up a cheap deck. Even integrated amps with allegedly “good” phono stages still fall far short of the amazing stand alone versions that are available. The reasons for this can be summarised as follows

1. It is a highly specialist aspect of electronic design - companies that love vinyl have focussed a great deal of time and effort into this area. Most amplifier manufacturers are catering for CD / line level signal levels and have not invested R & D work into this area.

2. To reduce costs, it makes sense for amplifier manufacturers to minimise costs of phono stage components in an integrated amp. The simple reason is that only a small percentage of folk are likely to use a turntable of real quality.

3. The most performance enhancing aspect of all amplification is a clean, unimpeded power supply. With integrated and pre-amplifiers the phono stage has to “piggy back” off the power supply for amplification that is far more current hungry. To put it mildly this is bad news – not only are voltage sometimes lacking but the phono stage supply is badly contaminated by the workings of the main amplification. Even audiophile integrated amps or pre-amps such as Naim, Sugden, Audio analogue etc that have supposedly “good” phono stages still fall well short of good stand alone applications at around the £200 mark.

4. Cartridges require different "loading" from one another. To perform at their best you need to be able to try differnet settings. The ability to do this is usually only comprehensively tackeled in stand alone phono stages.

If you are using an integrated amp for your phono amplification we would suggest trying a stand alone device – you will be amazed at the difference. Having said this please be wary that not every stand alone model out there is a safe bet. Models that offer both moving magnet and moving coil facility at £100 are nothing short of disastrous and a complete waste of money in our view. We recommend a number of phono stages on our web site and to summarize briefly our tried and tested hot list runs as follows:
For moving magnet cartridge outputs – The GSP audio range, which starts at £85.
For moving coil cartridges – Creek audio at the £190 mark & Trichord Dino at the £300 mark
Above this, the choice becomes a lot less clear as there are a lot of good phono stages but the GSP audio range is one of our favourites and has received a number of rave reviews across a wide range of magazines.

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