Phono stage advice for active speakers

[speedyj]

I have a Project Debut Carbon Esprit with Ortofon red.

Currently usinf a Technolink TC 753LC phono stage into a set of Adam Artist 6 floorstanders.

The Adams are active and not that widely known I suspect.

I'm looking to upgrade my phono stage and like the idea of valves.

I used to run a valve system with a set of Rega XEL's and loved it.

Any suggestions?

Croft RIAA looks interesting but I'm not sure about valve stages and active monitors and how nicely they play together.

[struth]

as long as there is an earth i dont foresee any problems. " designers on this forum make valve phono stages. Jez Arkless and Alan Firebottle. Much depends on your costs, but sure both are in similar regions. Nice speakers Adams....

[walpurgis]

I went from an EAR 834P valve phono stage to a Graham Slee ERA V Gold solid state phono stage. It was simply better in every way. Since upgraded to Reflex M from same maker.

[CageyH]

I went From a Reflex M to a Firebottle KIN preamp with built in phono stage as I thought it sounded better.

[speedyj]

OK here goes:

I have upgraded to the Ortofon 2m Blue and thats made quite an improvement to my ears.

I've ordered a Little Bear T10 ver2.6 to try a low cost valve phono stage.

I will need a volume control as I use active speakers.

My Adam Artist 6's have an input impedance of 10 KOhm.

Will a passive pre amp play nicely with my Adam's?

Am I likely to have issues with mismatched impedance?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

[pure sound]

I suspect you may need a line stage with an output impedance of less than 1 KOhm to drive the Adams and that a passive unit may not be suitable.

[DSJR]

I agree. Much as I love passives with adjacent power amps - well, little more than a couple of metres away, the whole point of decent line stages is to drive several metres of cable to remote amps.

Have a look at pro sites like Thomann. There are a number of good 'volume controls with line buffers' around designed for speakers like the OP's. Forget valves here, they're an anachronism for us oldie vintage lovers and serve no place in this context. I don't even think croft preamps would drive up to ten metres of cable, but I could be wrong - mine sounded horribly flat and rolled off when I tried to use it that way - all the magic went...

[Arkless Electronics]

I partially disagree. The speakers apparently have an input impedance of 10K and so a 10K pot based passive driving cables up to 3-4 metres should be ok. If the op needs to route cables of 10M to them for WAF reasons or whatever then an active pre should certainly be used.

[pankon]

I went from an EAR 834P valve phono stage to a Graham Slee ERA V Gold solid state phono stage. It was simply better in every way. Since upgraded to Reflex M from same maker.

I tried a Graham Slee Accession phono vs my old Croft SuperMicro II (R-spec) preamp with phono stage.

I finally decided not to switch, as I found the Accession slightly leaner, although slightly more detailed than the Croft. But I then installed NOS Tesla E83CC valves in my Croft and the sound was brought to another level, significantly higher than the Accession. But then again, that's my opinion.

[Canetoad]

Can somebody tell me where I can get a set of these valves?

[anubisgrau]

I partially disagree. The speakers apparently have an input impedance of 10K and so a 10K pot based passive driving cables up to 3-4 metres should be ok. If the op needs to route cables of 10M to them for WAF reasons or whatever then an active pre should certainly be used.


may be suitable technically (on a paper) but there would be no bass. been there, done that. he needs an active preamp with <100ohm output impedance or a passive (like TVC) that translates a source's output impedance to the actives (and in that case he needs low imp sources).

there is absolutely no reason why a tube preamp would not be able to drive these speakers except that generally tube preamps have a higher OTP impedance than solid state, however there are exceptions like EAR for example, 864, 868, 912 etc.

[Arkless Electronics]

may be suitable technically (on a paper) but there would be no bass. been there, done that. he needs an active preamp with <100ohm output impedance or a passive (like TVC) that translates a source's output impedance to the actives (and in that case he needs low imp sources).

there is absolutely no reason why a tube preamp would not be able to drive these speakers except that generally tube preamps have a higher OTP impedance than solid state, however there are exceptions like EAR for example, 864, 868, 912 etc.

It's one of those forum cyclicle things that keep coming around I guess... some like passive and some like active.. IMO it would work fine with a passive. I have both here and I don't get "no bass" or in fact any problem with bass when using a passive... in fact a passive is flat to DC!

[pcourtney]

I have AVI DM5 actives with the AVI active 10" Sub, and the Graham Slee Accession phono stage, my PT1 has never sound so good :-)