I'm a phono moron, but having had several phono preamps, I think I can understand what finds Romy right in the EAR 834P, which I love. I'm not as skilled and crazy as to try to make all the Thorsten mods in it by myself, but I've tried some tube swapping and I find the sound of this thing quite good with some Mullard and Telefunken tubes.

I have been searching info about the ET SU-1 and it seems impossible to find any of those step-ups to get rid of the one into the 834. Are there other alternatives, which not being as rich sounding as the SU-1, can be an interesting step over the 834's built in one? Perhaps the S&B or the Bent's? or perhaps someone can point me to somewhere I can get an ET....

Regards.

Antonio J. wrote:

Are there other alternatives, which not being as rich sounding as the SU-1, can be an interesting step over the 834's built in one? Perhaps the S&B or the Bent's?

Hi guys,

these do seem quite interesting, but much of the written hoopla i've seen is coming from some of the less interesting characters on another BBS.

from a fairly capable system i heard last week, the S&B's set for maximum gain seemed to work quite well with a big old technics table, old SME and some cart i don't remember.  the system did have a massive hole in percieved quantity/quality above 3k so i cannot be completely confident in trying the S&B's in my own setup, but they definitely showed serious promise.

has anyone tried the the big Jensen MC's? its a name i don't see come up too often, but they don't impress me as incompetent.  a nice 27db gain, 75 ohm Jensen 347 could show promise.

best,
hirag

Antonio, you might information about Expressive Technologies transformer at here:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Site_images/SU-1.jpg.

I have linked it form ‘My Playback’ section, also in there should be link to a Stereophile article about SU-1 from beginning of 90s. It was in a king of customary-foolish article where a typically idiotic-reviewer (I do not remember who was it) plagued the ET-1 transformer into a low impedance input of the Curl’s Blowtorch and then he complained that when violins went to crescendos his wife cactuses lost their thorns.

The ET went out of business and I do not think you will fish those transformers, although the accidents are always possible. I know there is a guy in UK who has one ET-1 sale but he wants somewhere around 7500 pounds… quite aggressive price I think.  I sold my ET-1 a few months ago and I do not know where to get more. (BTW, talking about the irony: the dirt that runs Audiogon banned me from there because he believed that I should not sell a transformer for more money than the value of his entire trailer. What a cheap profound idiot!!!)

I would like no one subscribe a notion that it is necessary to search for the ET-1 (or any other “better” component). ET magnetics were fine but it was good if you are a specifically interested in that “goodness”. Also, it is very important to understand that this specific interest in the “goodness” has nothing to do with the actual benefits a person can get out audio. Yes. ET-1 does some unique things to sound but after you have it on your shelf then you forget about it and still listening the recording instead of the ET-1’s benefits. What I am trying to say that all those ET-1 advantages (or the advantages of any other “superior” audio components) has meaning only when we do our audio-talk. For music listening all those audio-talks are very much irrelevant.

Alternatives? Many people recently use S&B. The 103S are les interesting then ET-1 (the S&B unfortunately does just gain, nothing else) but for the money S&B do OK. In fact, I feel that S&B better then many other transformers. For instance the S&B is way better then the Graham’s transformer, although when I had Grahams it was a preproduction prototype and perhaps they did better later on … Yet, although the S&B is OK transformer but I still feel that the hype around S&B is blown primary due to low requirements and low demands of the transformer users…

Rgs,
Romy

Thank you very much for your responses guys. I'll see if I can get a S&B to try with the EAR and listen how the music benefits or not from it.

Romy: I understand things in the same way you do, I mean that I mainly listen to the music, you may remember when I had a serious disappointment with my system's sound, but that was fixed by the Bidat. Now I try tweaks and upgrades, but I'm not looking for "more" I just pay attention to the music and when I listen I can forget about "sonics", but this doesn't "fix" the fact that I know that my system should do some things different to really sound like I want it to sound. Perfect sound? I don't think so, but it would be "the sound to forget about sound". The matter here is that one cannot know for advanced if one tweak or upgrade will take you into the desired direction (there's not a single person out there that can really know it because each of us has it's own taste, expectations and needs to be fulfilled to get true musical enjoyment), thus some testing is required, but there are too many brands, models, and devices out there that having some clues about what is worth trying is very very welcome.

Regards and Happy New Year to all you,

Antonio

PS: I have e-mailed S&B and I received an answer from Jonathan Billington, adressing me to this site: http://www.mfaudio.co.uk/ They build the SUT using their transformer as Bent does. Do you know them?

Romy the Cat wrote:

the S&B unfortunately does just gain, nothing else) but for the money S&B do OK.

Romy the Cat wrote:

Antonio, I never understood this concept of “gain selector”.

Romy the Cat wrote:

If I remember correctly S&B had 10, 20 25 db options via re-wiring of the primary coil. It is not complicated to place primary in some kind of rotary 3-position switch but it would be completely unnecessary.

Romy the Cat wrote:

Presumably all those aftermarket S&B resellers try to convince buyers that by they would “have a flexibility to select a gain whatever they wish” but I find that it is quite a bogus benefit.

Romy the Cat wrote:

Fist: it is VERY difficult to fine a switch that would commutate 0.3mV signal without any sonic degradations (at list I was not able to find any).

Romy the Cat wrote:

Second: people need one permanent gain for one given cartridge/phonocorrector and no one doing the switching after a necessary gain was found (people who use multiple needles and multiple arms usually have multiple phonocorrectors).

Romy the Cat wrote:

Therefore, if you’re willing to use S&B then get them raw and considering that the cable between the transformer and phonostage is the most critical of all then just mount those S&B directly to the binding posts of your phonocorrector. The S&B despite of very simple mu-metal can are quit quiet and it can easily work in this application.

Romy the Cat wrote:

I would go for 20-25db and then just tune the loading resistor.

Romy the Cat wrote:

To have those “luxury” options that Bent Audio and few other offers I find not only unnecessary but also “bad for sound”.

Thorsten wrote:

Then it does exactly what is asked of it, I asked JB to design it for me PERSONALLY as a "wire with gain". I have been on previous occasions been unconvinced of many stepup transformers, be they sowter, amplimo, EAR or jensen. The only ones I got to like where old Mike stepups from Neve Mixing Desks and some ancient and I mean ultra-ancient Ribbon Mike stepups pulled from an old grampian console. Both of these where of course virtually single pieces and even they retained some colorations. The TX-103 has come very close to a "wire with gain", which is more than I can say about most other passive or active steups. Not everyone wants or needs a wire with gain, well as the BBC commented, other suppliers exist.... ;-)

The caT

T, although I am not in disagreement with what you suggest but I have to admit that your expectation of user applications dose not make sense to me. I’m taking the use of a transformer in a system and getting a result out of it instead of building a universal product available for resell.

I person has one cartridge, installed at one arm and a person has it for 3-5 years (some people much longer). Why the person needs a severely sound-worsening gain switch or an ease-changeable loading resistor (foolishly placed at the secondary coil instead being placed at the grid of the input tube)?

After the person have found the correct combination between his cartridge, loading and gain then it will never change and the person do not need all of this “accessories”. Therefore all those “added values” that Bent Audio and others stick into TX-103 are juts a leisure for the Morons who makes those changes each weekend and then compare their full of “wisdom” notes at AA.  Is it the tarter customers for the Bent Audio?

If people happen having multiple arms and multiple cartridges then they most likely have multiple transformers and multiple phonocorrectors (or multiple inputs with the defend loads…)

So, I have no idea who was a target market for those TX-103 optimization kits and I find them totally unnecessary, even “bad for sound”.  After all necessary configuration found these entire things should be permanently soldered and never touched again until the needle or the corrector change.

The Cat

Romy the Cat wrote:

So, I have no idea who was a target market for those TX-103 optimization kits

Paul,

As far as I know the Expressive Technologies have only tow models: the regular transformers and toroidal transformers. The toroidal version (SU-2) is not available publicly which left that whatever the Expressive magnetic available out there it would be the only SU-1 version that Expressive even produced. The outer box should not be important as the SU-1 has 4-5 outer boxes, one inside another, like the Russian Nesting Dolls. The transformers themselves are remarkable small, in fact insultingly small for this box. I have no idea what they sell at Audiogon and what the history of those units. The Expressive was a small company that made the transformer by the small production runs of 10-50 units. It is possible that they had a run with different face plates or somebody remodeled them. I personally have seen only plane-vanilla black units with the Expressive Technologies “embroiling” at corner. If you are interested to buy one then you should more be concern that the Expressive would work with your phonostages. This transformer might be very finicky ….

PS: I moved your post form the open forums to the audio section. I hope you do not mind.

Paul Costa wrote:

Thanks for your reply. I am in the market for either a new pre-amp or phono and line stage. I know they need around 47k for optimal loading, but what else might I be concerned with. Did you have a look on Agon at the two there.  The one I was thinking of buying he says is from 1987.  I amy pick it up myself to make sure everything is ok with it.

I would like do not downsample myself down to the purchasing advisement. I feel to board to do it. There are plenty morons out there who would be happy to advise you, regardless their sense of the subject…

Anyhow, staing further away form your Audiogone frustrations: generally, the 47k recommendation is irrelevant as it would depend how much you are wiling to load your cartridge.  If I remember correctly the Expressive would like to see low input capacitance, 100 pf would be optimum. In reality everything is more completed and I have seen how Expressive (I had 3 SU-1 and 2 SU-2) behave very differently with different phonostages (tried with few). If you are local with the saler then leave him money bring the Expressive home and try it with your phonostages. If it Expressiveise Sound then you would nee 3 seconds to detect it. If you do not say “Holly shit!” after second note you heard then your phonostage was not good to begin with and even the Expressive will not help you. I can not say, unfortunately, which specific property of phonostage to look for.  Yes, BTW, keep your cable after the Expressive as short as possible and as good quality as possible. The cable after the Expressive and before the phonostage is the most sonic inflicting cable in your entire system.

Rgs,
Romy the Cat