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budget mm phono stage.

Dean Jordan

Dean Jordan

pfm Member
Looking for a budget phono stage to go between a amp and a rega p1 my wife has. TT comes with rega carbon cart.

I know rega do there thing in this range but want to know if there is anything else out there that you guy recommend.

any thing for £50 to £200

thanks in advance

Dean
 
Trichord Dino, running an RP1/Carbon into a Mk2 I bought from classifieds for £200, seen the Mk1 go for £100. Prefer Dino to the entry Rega or Naim stages.

Plenty of other popular options in budget - Pro-Ject, Graham Slee, Lehman. There was a NAD in classifieds cheap, might still be there.
 
Amber Audio said:
Trichord Dino, running an RP1/Carbon into a Mk2 I bought from classifieds for £200, seen the Mk1 go for £100. Prefer Dino to the entry Rega or Naim stages.

Plenty of other popular options in budget - Pro-Ject, Graham Slee, Lehman. There was a NAD in classifieds cheap, might still be there.
Click to expand...

Have also seen a couple of DV P75 go for peanuts recently. On par, if not better than excellent Dino.
 
Howdy said:
Have also seen a couple of DV P75 go for peanuts recently. On par, if not better than excellent Dino.
Click to expand...
Agree a P75 Mk2 recently went for £150 I think, total bargain. With a LOMC the P75 in PE mode is hard to beat without spending a good bit more.

Had all 4 versions, used Mk2 is the sweet spot £/performance imho. I’ve also had all 3 versions of the Dino with the various PSUs, at the used prices they usually go for they can also be a real bargain, for MM I'd choose one over a P75 which I don’t think is stellar in normal modes but excels in PE mode.

Bit of patience and £200 gets a quality stage if you’re happy to buy used.
 
I'm actually not a fan of the Dino. It's clear and detailed but there is a glassy glare to the sound that's annoying once you latch on to it.

I wouldn't sweat it too much. There are loads of decent budget MM stages, just get one of the recommended ones and you'll be fine. A Rega, Cambridge, NAD etc will all do the job. I'd get one for £50 then spend the rest upgrading to a P2 ;0)
 
Mr Pig said:
I'm actually not a fan of the Dino. It's clear and detailed but there is a glassy glare to the sound that's annoying once you latch on to it.

I wouldn't sweat it too much. There are loads of decent budget MM stages, just get one of the recommended ones and you'll be fine. A Rega, Cambridge, NAD etc will all do the job. I'd get one for £50 then spend the rest upgrading to a P2 ;0)
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Using either Dino 1 or 2 with basic PSU or NCPSU for 8 and a half years now and eagerly waiting for the moment I latch onto this glassy glare.
 
The Dynavector P75 is very good indeed. The mk4 is not far off being as good as my Naim Superline, which costs vastly more. I believe the mk2 and mk3 are considerably less good- but still very good. However, I think the advice above is dead right in your situation - get a Rega Fono or equivalent (Graham Slee perhaps) and spend any spare cash elsewhere.
 
A used Fono Mini would be perfectly suitable for P1/Carbon.

There's been an A2D version in the classifieds on here since November, £55 delivered from East Sussex.
 
Can't go far wrong with a Rega Fono of any vintage. They seem to turn up in the PFM classified fairly regularly for £100ish. A wanted ad might even see you right
 
I have used (and keep as a spare) an Edward’s Audio “Apprentice” mm.
Very good and available second hand from about £60
 
Since I became a fan of Michael Fidler’s offerings I now have an unused Edwards Audio MM1 Mk2 in the cupboard. It’s better than the Spartan S5 at £150 but not the S15 at £330.
 
It would appear that Dean's wife is spoilt for choice, which is somewhat heart lifting all these decades after vinyl records were supposed to have gone extinct.

Something to consider here is that, with fixed loading models and an A-T MM, one should try to keep input capacitance at no more than 100pF, not so much for Carbon, in particular, which is rather forgiving, but just in case the wife ends up wearing the tip down to a nubbin and you collectively decide to install an alloy cantilevered A-T, such as VM95E or summat., instead of simply replacing the existing stylus like for like.

The suggested NAD PP3, for example, is fixed at 200pF, putting the total at over 300pF with tonearm wiring. Again, not a deal breaker with Carbon, but can begin to sound somewhat OTT with some gear, rooms, ears, etc. with such as VM95. A slightly lean sounding amp/or bright sounding 'speakers in a bare floors room, for example.

Some may have noticed me having suggested Mr. Pig's NAD PP3 that is in the classifieds to another member on here just the other day, however, that deck included an Ortofon OMB 5 (recommended 200 - 500pF), with the NAD bringing the total capacitive load pretty close to right square in the middle of that range.
 
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Craig B said:
Something to consider here is that, with fixed loading models and an A-T MM, one should try to keep input capacitance at no more than 100pF.
Click to expand...

Dino! Cheap as chips, sounds very good (until you latch onto the glassy glare 😜 ), versatile (MC and MM), and comes at 100pF to boot!
 
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