Phono pre-amps

I'm looking to wipe the dust off my turntable and for reasons mostly involving space I'm looking to combine a phono pre-amp and a pair of active speakers (soon to be a completely different thread but something like these). Any recommendations?

I've looked at the Project Phono Box MM at £49.95 but it looks like something that I could cobble together with some parts from Maplin. I do however appreciate that Project are now fairly well though of in the budget turntable arena. There is also Cambridge Audio Azur 551P at a similar price althoguh some initial reading suggests there are better options. A bit more gets a NAD PP 2e at £99.95 and if I double that a Rega Fono MM at £198.

Given that my turntable is a Rega Planar 2 (I'm guessing equivalent to about £300 in todays money) then I doubt it's worth spending more so £200 would be the top of the budget. There is a cheaper Rega option at £89 but this looks a bit tacky and something like this at £798.00 would be pointless overkill. I can't see me ever going MC in the future (and if I ever do then I'll be changing everything anyway) so support for MM alone is fine.

I have the Project Phono Box. I agree with the sentiment that it looks like something you could cobble together yourself. It got good reviews though and I have no issues with it. I had actually forgotten I had one sitting in between the deck and the amp doing its stuff. It's hidden out of sight so the fact that it looks crap I can cope with. The Cambridge 551P certainly looks significantly better and had they had that in Richer Sounds at the time I think I would have gone for that.

The build cost of anything like this will be between 25% and 33% of the sale cost. The electronics to build a decent phono preamp costs about a quid, maybe two, retail (if you don't get your parts from Maplins) - irrespective of the label on the front.

The differences between them will be largely down to the quality of the circuit layout and particularly the power supply, but mostly in how pretty the box is.

If you can hear the difference between them, one is *faulty* - because they both should follow the IRC standard. The deck, tone arm, and cartridge all have a greater effect on the output and the amplifier and speakers and room shape even more.

Pick one, and enjoy it. And ignore the bollocks that the audiophools spout. Just make sure you have a moving magnet cartridge - if you have moving coil you'll need something else.

If you already have speakers why not look out for a audiolab 8000a a classic British amp which has a built in pre amp mm/mc

In two words, space and convenience. I'm looking for something that doesn't take up much room and is quick to set up/put away. I currently don't have separate speakers so I'm looking to get some half decent compact active speakers to attach to my computer which will be permanently set up and allow a small compact vinyl setup to be plugged in occasionally and also a mixing desk/mini studio. I appreciate that getting speakers to fit those 3 scenarios is always going to be a compromise so that will be an entirely different thread.

Thanks for the comments, I seem to be struggling to find reviews where options have been objectively looked at so I may end up just getting the Cambridge Audio one, especially as there is a Richer Sounds within 2 minutes of the office where I'll be tomorrow.

Certainly the reviews on Richer Sounds website for both that and the Project one mostly good (obviously I have no idea how much censorship goes on there though). The only negative reviews are for the Project but look like they could well be for faulty units in which case aren't so relevant anyway.

The power supplies on all the ones in my budget are external DC type thingies which may or may not be generic. The ones with custom designed power supplies fall outside of my budget.

I'm struggling to see where vinyl fits into either of those requirements.

Surely a CD based system or a streaming amp system would be smaller, more convenient and sound just as good or likely even better.

Something like the Cambridge Audio Minx Xi:

https://www.cambridgeaudio.com/products/network-players/minx-xi

Or do you just have a huge vinyl collection?

you've got to spend ALOT on CD, to approach the mid/ high-frequency transparency of vinyl.

Timing & dynamics are different as well.

depends whether you just want music in the background, or whether you want a proper 'sit down, lights off' system...

I'll be slimming down a little this year but the vinyl collection is and will still be substantial. My digital music is on a server and I'll be using one of the RaspberryPis that I have knocking around to connect to the speakers in this system. I'm also going to digitise my CD collection and get shot of the things at some point. I want to keep the vinyl separate to this though. This is the compromise that gets my vinyl out of the garage and back to being listened to (there is a built in wardrobe with enough shelving to store the vinyl and turntable when not in use in this room) and although it's never going to be a sit down, lights off system, is better than them never getting listened to at all.

That Cambridge unit you linked to would fit the bill for the kitchen/diner (which is another thread).

Fair enough, in that case it's well worth investing in some vinyl front end hardware.

For simplicity you could go for one of the new USB turntables as most of those have a built in phono stage, that would keep everything in one box with a single PSU. Richer Sounds have some turntables with built in phono stage from Project and Audio Technica, in the £100-£300 range.

That would give the option of easily digitising any rare vinyl direct to the PC too.



It's a very nice one box solution, I'm listening to one next to my PC now. With some decent quality desktop speakers and 500+ CD quality album rips on the hard drive it makes a perfect 2nd system, without even considering its internet streaming features.

The thought of digitising my vinyl doesn't interest me that much so getting a USB turntable would feel like a pointless downgrade. I've had my Rega for 30 years now and I'm probably as attached to it as I am to some of my vinyl. I'll probably only get rid of it when I can afford one of these (and a room to dedicate to it that I can padlock).

I'd still have the capability to digitise vinyl with what I'll be getting but to be honest I probably won't bother for most of time. I agree that it would be easier with USB functionality and there will definitely be stuff that I haven't a hope in hell of finding digitally though. The vinyl I have will either be being listened to as nature intended or flogged on Ebay.

OR so they would have you believe.

Timing and dynamics are not measurable things; they're the waffle that idiots like Ken Kessler have blarted out for years in the hope of persuading people that they know what they're talking about (and probably scoring more toys to play with).

The big big BIG problem with vinyl is that the audio is massively compressed to fit it on the record; without the low frequency compression (RIAA equalisation) the grooves would be an inch wide. So the bass, as recorded on the vinyl, needs to be emphasised in the preamp. And there is a peak in the response at 50Hz, where the gain is highest. And coincidentally where there is a resonance on both motor noise and mains hum... things you don't want on the output signal.

To be honest, whenever you say I prefer this system to that system, these speakers to those speakers, vinyl to CD or whatever, you're simply stating which distortion you prefer.

My credentials: I used to design and build audio studios for the BBC. With both CD and vinyl, and latterly digital playout systems.

I've got nothing to add, but I do love some of the audiophile bullshit that people try to sell:

Ethernet Cable
Fuses
More fuses
Cable towers

Careful with those links, you'll be giving poor Barnacle a heart attack!

I wouldn't wish that, but I'm sure he will be thinking up a few expletives in his head though

Ok then

The Musical Fidelity V-LPS mkII comes highly recommended on one of the norwegian hifi forums. Does MM/MC and can be upgraded with a "V-PSU" (or just a suitable SMPS/linear supply). Should be able to pick one up for <£90 I believe.

My favourites have always included special green pens to write around the edge of CDs (remember CDs?); recordable CDs that sounded 'better' than the originals (how does that work then?); unidirectional speaker cables (mind you don't get a spark from all those poor electrons that can't find their way back home) and more recently, 'audio grade' hard drives (audio requires approximately 180kB/second; *any* hard drive can shift megabytes a second...)

And let's not forget special stands to keep the loudspeaker leads off the floor, or gold-plated mains plugs. Or special pebbles or unpowered silicon chips that magically absorb bad sounds.

I had occasion, years ago, to arrange some blind testing for speaker cables in one of the big studios in Leeds. I took the opportunity to sneak in a ringer: cables including a 1 ohm series resistor and a series power diode. Nobody noticed...

Truly it is said: an audiophool and his money are soon parted.

Though it must be said that it is not only Audiophiles. There a plenty of people wasting money on obsessive hobbies ! including ourselves with many a expensive and often needless upgrade to our cars.

Oh yeah. But the audio types are such an *easy* target.

Here's a joke: put some speakers into a Radio 1/2 studio a few years back - £17,000 each. Wired up with mains cable...

Does that mean I may as well take my cd collection out of the freezer!

I'll have a look at that as well thanks. I've got a month or so to mull things over as the rough schedule is

Carpenter builds cupboard under stairs next month
I carpet and paint new cupboard under stairs
I cut down existing shoe storage currently located in garage so it fits in new cupboard.
Move boxes of scarves and gloves from mancave guest bedroom to on top of shoe storage
Move turntable from garage to newly created space in guest bedroom wardrobe

I'm still unsure whether the directional 7 grand network cable or the cable towers are my favourites from those links. I keep expecting Chris Morris to jump out from behind the websites and laugh at me for looking at them.

Well duurh, you need to keep it in the cupboard above the oven if you want to replicate the warmth of vinyl.

Well I've read a few more reviews and don't see any justification for the £100+ ones so have ordered the Cambridge Audio to pick up in store on Friday.

As always, thanks for the inputs.

Now to look for some decent interconnects....

Have a look on Ebay. Loads of "audiophiles" bought high-end cables and don't need them anymore. They may all sound different, but as Neil said, that is because none are perfect. They all do something less well that another so sound very marginally different. But expensive cables were usually well made, with good plugs, etc. They don't go off, and sell for the price of a budget cable at Richer Sounds.

Sorry, I should have been clearer with the smileys, it was a joke aimed at winding the other Neil up (given his well published disdain for the more esoteric connection options in high end hi-fi) but he's either ignoring me or not biting.

I agree with the basic philosophy that anything that exists between the natural instrument and the ear (be it part of the recording process or reproductive chain) is going to colour the sound to an extent which is always going to have a subjective element. I don't actually need cables yet as I haven't yet decided on which speakers it's going to connect to (and I have a cable for my current speakers) but you make a good point regarding EBay. I'd never thought to look there for such items.

Quality is bound to the law of diminishing returns and it holds for hifi too. The difference with home sound equipment being that sound quality is rather hard to subjectively quantify and so we can be fooled into buying all sorts of esoteric stuff because it apparently brings out the best in the stuff we have already bought. Good speaker cables are noticably better than bell wire, I think

People buy mains cables and plugs for 300 pounds!!! I'm not that rich or foolish. In Germany, there is an industrial cable manufacturer, Lapp Kabel, which has a following by the DIY audiophile community. Shielded cables that apparently sound better than expensive audio stuff. I needed a new mains cable for my CD player and made one up from their cable and half decent plugs. Back to back blind test with the cable out of the box showed an improvement even to my sceptical brother so I kept it, but it only cost me about a tenner. I didn't expect any difference so was surprised but it did not make me want to experiment further up the food chain as the possible improvements could not be justified from a cost point of view. The biggest difference probably comes from a bit more cross section so lower resistance, especially on long runs like for speakers. Shielding maybe resists interference a bit, but I don't know if I could hear that type of difference.

Most of these esoteric audio products are like putting 100 octane petrol in a car tuned for 95. There is no scientific explanation why it should improve anything, but if it pleases, I guess people can spend their money how they like

Btw, I have a cambridge pre amp for my AR Legend of the same era as your Rega. It is absolutely fine. No need to spend anymore.

To be fair, if I'd just plonked a couple of grand on six feet of cable, I'd be damn certain it sounded better!

p.s. Mark, I'm not biting!