Fascinating visit from the eponymous 'Mike Adams' today all the way from Devon - he brought with him four SUTs to add to my current collection of three (plus the MC input to the Aurorasound Vida) making seven and a half MC options in total!
My current collection
- Hashimoto HM7 (acquired in japan in November and built up by Ampregen/Valvebloke) 1:30 and 1:15 options
- Sevens and Billington TX103 step-up (built up by Ampregen/Valvebloke) 1:20/1:10/1:7.5/1:5, with open + 3 resistor loading options at each ratio)
- Auditorium A23 for Ortofon - 1:30 step-up no options
Plus Mike brought:
- Miyajima KSW - 1:29 designed for Miyjima Shilabe (which is my current stereo cartridge)
- Art Audio SUTs - not quite sure what the ratio here is but they seemed in the 1:30 sort of are in terms of comparative volume
- Altec 4722 (belonging to Guy Sergeant and borrowed by Mike) seemingly fairly high gain I would say around the 1:30 mark
- Sowter 1:10 boxed
It should be noted that the cartridges in use were my Miyajima Shilabe (0.23mV/16 ohm) and Miyjima Zero (0.4mv/6 ohm) - also briefly my Miyajima Premium 78 (0.7mV/ 6 ohm) so any conclusions here are probably not universal in application as while the Zero is pretty close to the 3-4 ohm of a typical Ortofon, the Shilabe is a bit of a strange one when it comes to matching.
Some of this was just for fun really as the Sowters and Altecs while both pretty musical had their limitations in terms of detail and nuance - the Altecs proving better in terms of scale, but there were whole chunks of information missing with the Shilabe at least.
What surprised me most was the Hashimoto HM7s. I'd head these before in a Choir Audio incarnation and was blown away - indeed it was hearing the Choir Audio with a Miyajima Waza nearly 2 years ago now that set me on my current path that involved selling up my Audio Note Io2 and Kondo-era AN S6c SUT in pursuit of something potentially more musically engaging (I had always had a love-hate thing with the Io .. flawless as it is, it just never quite sucked me in as much as, say, a vintage SPU). Anyway, I had been a little underwhelmed after the buid was complete and I loaned this to Mike soon after. But it seems that a couple on months of run-in has transformed the Hashimotos and to my mind (in stereo at least) it stood head and shoulders above everything else here - all at once (hugely) more dynamic, more detailed, more energised, and more musical. Just like I'd head them before.
The TX103 is a swiss army knife of phono stages and is typically very musical and sweet .. it had plenty of oomph but didn't quite catch the magic of the Shilabe in the same way as he HM7 ... I suspect the limitation here is the 1:20 ratio at 120 ohm. It sounded better at 1:10/83 ohm (and the preamp cranked up a bit) but never quite caught up with the HM7 - the opposite of what was the case before I loaned the HM7 to Mike, when the TX103 seemed the better option. A really surprising turnaround as I'm not a great believer in stuff like burn-in.
The Miyajima KSW and A23 sounded quite similar to me - both softer and less dynamic than either the Hashimoto or the TX103, but both having a musical charm about them and a way with space and detail ... hapilly live with either + Shilabe. Better with classical and jazz than with harder-edged rock or electronica, nevertheless the Hashimoto revealed more micro-dynamics than either.
The Art Audios trailed a bit here - while quite musical and fun, there was something of a thin vocal rendition, recessed midrange and obscuring of detail, and I don't think they quite pulled off the trick here. But I suspect they may be suited better to higher gain, lower impedance cartridges - SUTs are always horses for courses (I suspect the Altecs are in the same category). The Shilabe is a queer fish for matching and these results can't be universalised.
All of this was into the MM input of the Vida. The MC input is actually not bad, but I found it was easily bettered by just about any of these SUTs into the MM input.
Switching to the mono Zero (which is more typical in terms of impedance characteristics) the differences between the SUTs actually reduced dramatically. The clear winner in terms of detail and dynamics (as well as front to back soundstage) was still the HM7 (in my eyes) but there was huge charm from both the KSW and A23, while the TX103 also came into its own. In fact, at the higher end, the matching here was less about 'correctness' and more about preference, about chosing the right 'tone control' to match musical preference. There wasn't a huge amount to choose from here in terms of tone, back to front staging, or detail delivery.
In some ways the conclusions are easy to draw - the HM7 is state of the art (possibly better than my old Kondo SUT), but the KSW, A23 and TX103 all have their charms. On the other hand - we were really spoilt for choice. You won't land a pair of HM7s in the UK for much less than £900 (before any effort to case them up), or a buit-up Choir Audio for less than £1400 after import duty. The TX103 is only available now built up in a fancy case from MFA for £1800. The KSW retails for around the same, the A23 for around £1100. Not cheap options, any of them.
Anyway a really fun afternoon and great to catch up with Mike again!