Quote:
Originally Posted by Astrophe
[I][B]Be interested in your impressions of the phono stage when it arrives.
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The Mofi Studiophono phono stage finally arrived on Friday; hooked up to the TT & amplifier now so, Vinyl is back on the menu....
Relatively simple to setup, plug in the TT cables & ground wire, pair of semi decent interconnects from the PS to the Amp. Haven't played with any of the dip switches as (A) I have no idea what I'm doing & (B) it's a pretty bog standard MM cartridge/stylus so, pretty much leave it set out of the factory I figured.
Vinyl plus PS then on to tubes... hmmmm, sweet sounds (not withstanding dirty records)...
The mofi doesn't seem to add any colour although, I can't really say this definitively as my tube amp doesn't have a Phono stage inbuilt.
Couple of useful things on the Mofi; it has a 'Mono' switch which cancels out one of the channels if playing a recording that is mono. This removes the noise from the stylus reading in the vertical plain & now, having tried this feature on some older recordings, I have to say they sounded much warmer & all in all, more pleasing to the ear. So, this 'Mono' feature definitely seems like something useful rather than a techno gizmo with no meaningful use.
It also has a 'Subsonic' Switch, this removes inaudible sound signals.. it works... but, obviously you can't hear that it works. With the switch disengaged, you could at times see somewhat radical pulsing of the woofer drivers, with it engaged, this disappeared completely.... I'm guessing it will help the drivers not to stress or overwork too much.. I'm not really that sure.
Dip switches to adjust impedance & gain settings, they don't look overly user friendly, dip switches rarely are however, seems pretty standard on most of the Phono Stages I looked at. I don't necessarily see myself moving away from recognised MM carts/stylus to MC so, not sure if I will fiddle with these in the future or not... I understand that a tweak here or there can sometimes provide improvement to signal quality/frequency response.. I've never had this type of option before so, will take some reading before diving in...
Now looking at options for a new TT... can't afford a fortune. but, have found a few options that I think are worth more consideration:
Pro-ject Debut Carbon Evo, Music Hall MMF5.1 & Audio Technika LP7; they're in the money range I can afford so, if anyone out there has any experience with them, please let me know your thoughts...
Cheers