Swanny:
I'm just getting back into vinyl (after 30+ years), so this is a "starter" phono preamp for me. I use Parasound line (JC2) and power (JC1) amps and up till now have only had CD sources (CA 840C with a Bryston BDA-1 D/A).
I considered the Parasound JC3 phono, but its 2.5x the cost of the PS Audio and I did not want to commit to that much cash at the beginning. The Parasound is also quite inflexible in cart loading choices, and gain is fixed as well.
My only beef with the GCPH so far is the cap loading (it is fixed at each resistance loading position); also it is too high for some MM carts (like the AT 150 MXL), forcing you to buy very expensive phono interconnects. Some of these cost as much as the GCPH itself. With MCs, this is much less of an issue.
My other concern was I thought this was an all class A discrete design, which it is not. Not to say that having an IC amp input circuit is a bad thing (in fact it is quite common in phono pre-amps under $1000), but their advertising implies otherwise.
I also considered the CA 650/651 products, but they need considerable modification for best sound quality. They are considerably cheaper however.
I am also considering a modification to the GCPH to remove the torrodial transformer and relocate it in an outside chassis, perhaps even building a DC supply with it and running seperate power into the GCPH. This would do a lot to reduce the noise floor even further, as I could easily see the 60/120/240 Hz power artifacts in the spectrum analysis.
I'm just getting back into vinyl (after 30+ years), so this is a "starter" phono preamp for me. I use Parasound line (JC2) and power (JC1) amps and up till now have only had CD sources (CA 840C with a Bryston BDA-1 D/A).
I considered the Parasound JC3 phono, but its 2.5x the cost of the PS Audio and I did not want to commit to that much cash at the beginning. The Parasound is also quite inflexible in cart loading choices, and gain is fixed as well.
My only beef with the GCPH so far is the cap loading (it is fixed at each resistance loading position); also it is too high for some MM carts (like the AT 150 MXL), forcing you to buy very expensive phono interconnects. Some of these cost as much as the GCPH itself. With MCs, this is much less of an issue.
My other concern was I thought this was an all class A discrete design, which it is not. Not to say that having an IC amp input circuit is a bad thing (in fact it is quite common in phono pre-amps under $1000), but their advertising implies otherwise.
I also considered the CA 650/651 products, but they need considerable modification for best sound quality. They are considerably cheaper however.
I am also considering a modification to the GCPH to remove the torrodial transformer and relocate it in an outside chassis, perhaps even building a DC supply with it and running seperate power into the GCPH. This would do a lot to reduce the noise floor even further, as I could easily see the 60/120/240 Hz power artifacts in the spectrum analysis.