[Deuterium]

I have decided to assemble another rig with vinyl at the front end. I have a Linn LP12 turntable that I am going to have refurbished and add a new magnetic coil cart. I will probably use, at least to start, my equinox cabled 600s. The question I have is, "What should I put in between?" I could do a two box solution, a phono stage and headphone amp, and I would welcome some suggestions for that option, but I wonder whether this is a good one box solution available, a headphone or integrated amp that has a phono stage built in.

I should add that I would like to maintain the vinyl sonic profile in this rig. I was thinking tubes, but would consider solid state.

 

[oldskoolboarder]

You could do what I do and troll for a transparent pre-amp. I found a Rotel 1070 last year for about $200 on audiogon. Almost new. It has a phono stand and it's pretty transparent. I've run it w/ a Sophia Baby tube amp and some ASL AV-25 monoblocks.

I've repurposed the Baby as the headphone amp. It's connected to the Rotel's PRE OUT so I can use both my speakers and headphones with the same sources.

 

[ghostmusic]

If you want to get a tube amp with phono stage built in, I think that'll cost a lot of $$$. I can't think of tube integrated that has phono stage and a headphone amp.

I know Marantz integrated amps have both phono stage and headphone out... can't think of too many else that do. My advice is, though, get a standalone tube Bellari phono stage or something. It'll make your music sound significantly better than what comes with a budget integrated amp... and it doesn't cost too much... so if you don't have a loudspeaker set-up, I'd go with headphone amp + Bellari or some other comparable phono stage.

 

[oldskoolboarder]

yeah, I saw a bellari on ebay recently for pretty cheap.

 

[Deuterium]

Thanks all for your thoughts.

Interesting that the Bellari has a headphone jack so one could use it to drive cans and add a headphone amp later.

Have you listened to this piece with headphones?

 

[Deuterium]

What I ended up doing was digging out my old Dyna PAS-3X preamp and running both the digital and analog front ends through it to the SP. Works and, more importantly, sounds great.

 

[Digger2]

I would take a look at Accuphase integrated, with the optional DAC and Phono card.

 

[ppl]

You might Consider the Luxman SQ-100 Or for more power the rogue Audio Cronus