Quote Originally Posted by montesquieu View Post
Alex I'm quite curious as to the rest of your system when you made that comparison.

I've done it time and and time again, something repeated at intervals over many years, SUTS against both headamps and MC stages, compared using a whole raft of high-end cartridges from an Io2 to Koetsus to Miyajima to top end SPUs - and always the high-end SUTS always come out on top ... I've owned a few nice SUTs, not just the HM7s but Kondo-era AN-S6c, the internals in my current EAR 912, S&B TX103, Jorgen Schou for Ortofon SPU, quite a few others ... beating MC inputs and head amps alike essentially every time.

Plus points for the best SUTs - quietness (once you get them positioned), immediacy, dynamics, musicality. Down side is principally matching, both impedance and gain - easy to get it not so much wrong, but 'not quite right' with sub-optimal results.

Plus points for head amps - a lot less faff when it comes to hum, much more flexibility in matching with a variety of cartridges, and unquestionably more sound per pound. Down sides - hiss, and the ineffable ... I don't know, hifi wise they can be very good indeed, but musically even really good ones like the Slee Elevator (which I realy rate, don't get me wrong) just fall short of the very best SUTs for me. In my experience of course. But you pays your money ...




I wouldn't put the ST80 anywhere near the top rank of SUTs, it's overpriced by a mile by the sound of the one I heard (with an SPU incidentally).

I have heard great things about the Paul Hynes BTW I would love to hear one.
I respect what you say Tom but I would say that for reasons long lost in the annals of hi fi but related to makers of MC's being used to using fine wire and winding stuff... SUT's were always more common. There is a dearth of really good high end head amps out there. Marco reckoned that the Paul Heynes pipped mine yes... it is around £1500 I believe and there are further upgrades I would be doing on mine if able to sell them at this price. he also reckoned it was not that much better than my MkI, which was itself upgraded after that before Alcarmicheal bought it. Since then there is my MkII as favourably reviewed recently on AOS.

I don't doubt for one second your findings and sincerity on this but I would say that there are not many truly high end head amps out there to compare top SUT's against, and that the likes of offerings from myself and Paul Haynes my change your mind... or at least persuade you that the two methods are equal when equal effort and resources have been put into them