Whest PS.20

[lewis]

Thanks for the replies.
The ps.20 is permanently powered-up, and i'm spinnin as many tunes as poss to get a signal through it. I don't want to judge it too quickly though, so i'll just keep spinnin and listening for another few weeks at least. It's weird how some components sound right straight away, and some come on song later.
Same with cable i suppose.

[Marco]

Hi Paul,

I have been thinking this before relating to Martin's System but surely having to bypass the MC part of a very expensive stage and spending about another £1K on an SUT to maximise SQ does call into question that units value for money.

Well, for me, it's not a bad reflection on the Whest, as I've yet to hear ANY solid-state MC phono stage FULLY optimise the sonic capabilities of an MC cartridge. The MM stage/SUT route always wins, *providing* that the SUT used is of the highest quality and ideally matches the partnering cartridge, sonically and electrically. Therefore, one simply employs the use of a high-quality MM stage (in Martin's case the PS.30) and a top-notch SUT, which matches one's MC cartridge of choice (in his case a Shelter 5000, with the Choir Audio/Hashimotos) - and it's 'job done'!

Also you are forgoing the main selling point of high SQ with accurate MC loading.

Nope, as you'll see I've explained above.

Some things are just better, and to my ears, the whole principle of how the tiny (and delicate) signal from a low-output MC cartridge is amplified by a quality SUT, makes much more sense, as it eliminates a whole load of components sitting in the signal path of an active MC gain stage, and the associated noise that they generate.

What you have to be careful of with an SUT, apart from the obvious matching issues mentioned above, is that the interconnect cables between it and the partnering MM phono stage, are of the highest quality and kept as short as possible, otherwise you negate most of the sonic advantages of the SUT. That done, trust me, you'll be hard pushed to find an active MC stage that will outperform the best SUTs, used through a quality MM phono stage (SS or valve), although finding high-quality standalone solid-state MM only phono stages, can be problematic.

This is unfortunately the case with Martin's Whest, as you're paying for a largely redundant built-in MC stage, which is why I would advocate going the valve MM stage/SUT route, as there are some cracking standalone valve MM phono stages around that don't cost the earth (think Croft and Icon Audio here, for starters), and IMO, based on considerable experience, if you really want to hear what a top MC cartridge can do, then valves (done well), in conjuction with a quality SUT, is without doubt the way to go!

Marco.

[Thermionic Idler]

Marco a quick question if I may --- when you found superior results with the SUT versus the MC stage of the Whest, which cartridge were you using, was it an SPU? And was it one of the low impedance 2 ohm ones?

The only reason I ask is that if the Whest is like mine, the standard range of loading impedances starts at 100 ohms and rises from there. However the 2 ohm SPU's call for 50 ohms max. Whest custom fitted a 50 ohm resistor into mine at the 5 position for the SPU, but this morning I found that even that is probably a little high. After a friend had pointed out that I seemed to have a slightly rising treble response I measured it using a frequency sweep record and noted it did seem to rise by about 3 or 4 db at the top.

As a result I additionally switched in the 100 ohm resistor to create a 33.3 ohm load for the cartridge, this has smoothed out the response somewhat and has further improved the sound overall.

So it seems to me that the SPU does need quite a low resistance, load-wise, to stop high frequency electrical resonances, values which are unavailable in the standard Whest range of settings. It may well be that an SUT also goes some way towards nullifying these too.

Ahhh... all interesting stuff!

[Marco]

Hi Dave,

It was when I was down at Martin's place and had taken my T/T down to hear in his system, so at that time we heard the results both with my (then) SPU GM E, and his Shelter 5000, which is a fantastic sounding cartridge.

Going the MM stage/SUT route was a total no-brainer, sonically, with both his cartridge and mine, using their respective SUTs with the Whest's MM stage - so much so that it made the dedicated MC stage in his Whest sound broken in comparison!

Incidentally, that's a reflection not on how bad the MC stage is in the Whest, but rather just how sensational the sound is of the MM stage, used in conjuction with an appropriate SUT.......................

Marco.

[lewis]

Sounding MUCH better...

At this rate i might keep it!

Still needs more time though...