Moving coil experiment

[Doctor Fuse]

There are decent, very affordable head amps, like my Harmonious Audio (yikes, don't judge it on the embarrassing name) MC head amp (MCA-1). Very easy way to get into MC carts. Provided you are happy with your Graham Slee.

I used it in my bedroom system, with a Thorens TD160, Benz Micro MC cart, and NAD 3020, but am now enjoying a vintage Empire 2000E. I'll probably sell it for cheap, now that it's sitting idle (as good as it is, it's no comparison to my Benz Micro PP-1 MC preamp).

[Doctor Fuse]

I just traded a Harmonious Audio LOMC head amp and Sony XL-MC1 cartridge for a VPI power line conditioner.

The Harmonious Audio head amp is cheap, but works very well. It is butt ugly, though. Not something you want to proudly display.

Performance was very good. Totally dual mono, powered by two 9V batteries, one per channel, so dead quiet. Batteries didn't last the year like they say, but I was using dollar store ones, so there you go. Frequency response something like 10-100kHz, which I appreciate.

That would be my recommendation for starting out in LOMC. And go LOMC, there are less compromises than a HOMC.

Other similarly priced cheap units, like a Project Phonobox II and a vintage Rotel RX-855 receiver, were both hissy when using the MC head amp section. The HA unit blows them away.