Opinions on Tribute SUTs

[Arkless Electronics]

Or for better still performance there are head amps such as the one's I make.... Check out review here http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...156#post822156

[anubisgrau]

Or for better still performance there are head amps such as the one's I make.... Check out review here http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...156#post822156

do we really need this kind of commercial interference, especially when not true!

btw, there's quite some toroidal step up transformers out there, tribute, luxman, fidelity research are certainly not "nobody there"

[alcarmichael]

do we really need this kind of commercial interference, especially when not true!

btw, there's quite some toroidal step up transformers out there, tribute, luxman, fidelity research are certainly not "nobody there"

Why do you say 'especially when not true'?

[RothwellAudio]

Why do you say 'especially when not true'?

Here's a quote from the link in post #2

"In my experience, every active moving coil input stage degrades the sounds way too much. While it is possible to do active stages today, which have practically no detectable noise, it is the bass region and the bass quality where the problem lies. Active devices are drifting with temperature, operating point and under work, and if input signals are smaller than 1mV, the drift gets into the way of the music. Bass lines are muddy then and drum players seem to play like if they are drunk. So the music is lacking immediateness, and rather sounds hollow, uninvolving, uninteresting."

Convincing people like that that headamps are superior to SUTs is going to be a hard job. Of course, there's been a similar debate for years about valves and transistors, and things like distortion measurements don't seem to have any impact on the debate.
Anyway, to some people it will be true that SUTs are superior to active headamps. To others it won't be.
Personally, I think good examples of either technology can sound great. Bad examples of either technology don't.

[Arkless Electronics]

Here's a quote from the link in post #2

"In my experience, every active moving coil input stage degrades the sounds way too much. While it is possible to do active stages today, which have practically no detectable noise, it is the bass region and the bass quality where the problem lies. Active devices are drifting with temperature, operating point and under work, and if input signals are smaller than 1mV, the drift gets into the way of the music. Bass lines are muddy then and drum players seem to play like if they are drunk. So the music is lacking immediateness, and rather sounds hollow, uninvolving, uninteresting."

Convincing people like that that headamps are superior to SUTs is going to be a hard job. Of course, there's been a similar debate for years about valves and transistors, and things like distortion measurements don't seem to have any impact on the debate.
Anyway, to some people it will be true that SUTs are superior to active headamps. To others it won't be.
Personally, I think good examples of either technology can sound great. Bad examples of either technology don't.

Absolute rubbish to the first highlighted bit.

The second I agree with. The thing that bothers on this is that, to follow on from my last post, "Chinese whispers" from people without the technical knowledge to hold an opinion one way or the other on which is theoretically better, are being propagated, without any comparison with top quality head amps (rare on the ground) and used to build a weight of incorrect opinion that SUT's are better, which is a falsehood.

I'm not claiming any huge superiority for head amps over SUT's, just that when done optimally they are at least as good.

Comparing 30 year old £60 head amps from ebay with £1000 SUT's is not exactly a fair comparison and yes one would expect the SUT to win here.

I have not done any sort of search as to what's available new today in the realms of head amps and the only "high end" head amps I personally know of (I'm sure others will enlighten me on this) are the one I make and an even more expensive one from Paul Haynes designs. I recall in a long phone call from Marco a fair while ago him saying that both mine and the Paul Haynes unit had convinced him that a good head amp can be a least as good as the best SUT's... and this was in comparison with the top of the range Ortofon ST80 at around £1400. Marco actually bought the Paul Haynes unit! (double the £750 which mine costs).

[anubisgrau]

Why do you say 'especially when not true'?

because it's not true that headamps have better performance than SUTs, as stated in a post i referred to.

[alcarmichael]

because it's not true that headamps have better performance than SUTs, as stated in a post i referred to.

Surely that's only your opinion. Have you tried the Arkless head amp in your system against a Tribute SUT? I have and I prefer the Arkless head amp.


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[anubisgrau]

Surely that's only your opinion. Have you tried the Arkless head amp in your system against a Tribute SUT? I have and I prefer the Arkless head amp.

good for you

[RothwellAudio]

I find head amps in general to have a slightly more up front sound, the best SUT's by comparison are a little more laid back by comparison.

I would agree that assessment.

My experience is with the Hagermann Piccolo head amp and S&B TX103 SUT feeding a valve phono stage. It's hard to pick a winner, it's more down to personal preference. The Piccolo to some will be a tad clinical and the SUT will be a fraction soft or alternatively some will find the Piccolo wonderfully open and transparent whereas others will find the SUTs flowing and musical. Aspects such as sound stage, bass, treble etc were really very similar. The Piccolo has the advantage of being easily configurable for gain and loading, it is however a little hissy at the highest gain setting.

I don't get why there has to be one approach which has to be seen as superior. As ever it's down to the design objectives and quality of implementation, in my opinion.

Yes, I'd agree with that too.

[montesquieu]

Surely that's only your opinion. Have you tried the Arkless head amp in your system against a Tribute SUT? I have and I prefer the Arkless head amp.


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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 have not done any sort of search as to what's available new today in the realms of head amps and the only "high end" head amps I personally know of (I'm sure others will enlighten me on this) are the one I make and an even more expensive one from Paul Haynes designs. I recall in a long phone call from Marco a fair while ago him saying that both mine and the Paul Haynes unit had convinced him that a good head amp can be a least as good as the best SUT's... and this was in comparison with the top of the range Ortofon ST80 at around £1400. Marco actually bought the Paul Haynes unit! (double the £750 which mine costs).

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.