SUT or sale

[Floyddroid]

Two things that really made me sit up and think at this years NEBO were firstly, i must develop my already slightly breathed on Techie and the other was whether or not to sell my VTL 2.5II valve phono stage or try a SUT into the MM side of it. Opinions please.

[MikeMusic]

I found the Ortofon SUT performance into my Naim 82 staggering
Then I added a Whest and it improved even more

The VIDA out performed the pair

I'm now trying the Ortofon into the VIDA to work out if I want to keep the Ortofon or not

[walpurgis]

VTL certainly know how to design a good phono stage. I'd be inclined to go the SUT/MM input route.

My old VTL Deluxe pre-amp has the best inbuilt MM phono stage I've ever come across and sounds superb with an SUT.

[hifi_dave]

Look no further than RFC's (Paul) excellent MC-1 step up x'mer. Makes nonsense of many so called, high end step ups.

[belloire]

the only opinion that matters is yours Steve. i've had a couple of nice SUT's in my system, neither compare to the MC side of my stage. but that's my opinion and it's not shared by everyone.

best way is to have a SUT/Phono bake off at your place and get to hear a few combos in your system.

not really sure what you want to do to the techie. what have you done upto now? get a decent arm for it, put an achromat on it, take the psu offboard - done :)

[Ali Tait]

Another option could be a head amp.

[montesquieu]

In general a good, well-matched SUT into MM does a better job than a straight MC input, but it can be expensive for a good one and also difficult to match the cartridge sometimes. A cheap one can hurt rather than improve things. Agree on the head amp BTW I rate the Denon HA 500 and 1000, and the Graham Slee Elevator is great too,

[6L6]

The most important aspect of a SUT is that it has a coil impedance suited to your cartridge... This is the biggest reason why some people try them and report that things sound awful - if you have something made for 40ohm (suitable for a DL103, for instance) and connect a AT33 (with 10ohm coils) it's going to sound awful as the frequency response is going to have a big dip or peak due to the mis-match.

So... What's your cartridge?

[Ali Tait]

In general a good, well-matched SUT into MM does a better job than a straight MC input, but it can be expensive for a good one and also difficult to match the cartridge sometimes. A cheap one can hurt rather than improve things. Agree on the head amp BTW I rate the Denon HA 500 and 1000, and the Graham Slee Elevator is great too,

Yes, have an HA 500, nice bit of kit.