I think you'll be very happy with the Seduction. If you go to the main page at AudioAsylum you'll find a Bottlehead Forum, unless you've already found it. Search or post the question over there and you'll get many recommendations for cartridges. And, remember, you can always add an outboard step up transformer if you want to run MC cartridges.
Cartridge, Preamp advice: Bottlehead Seduction?
Hi,
I've been having a ball upgrading my mid-1980's system for the first time in over 20 years!
I now have a pair of Totem Arro's, a Unison Unico hybrid, integrated amp that was a "steal" here on Audiogon, a Music Hall CD 25.2 CD player for digital, and my dear, old SOTA Sapphire will soon be back from SOTA with a new bearing, belt and suspension springs. I'll soon be back in analogue business! :-)
The Sapphire has a Linn Basik tonearm on it, along with a very ancient Audioquest cartridge that will obviously need to be replaced. The tonearm will have to stay for the foreseeable future... by the time I buy a phono stage and interconnects and a new cartridge, my budget will be thoroughly maxed out for awhile.
It turns out that you can buy the phono card for the Unico and install it retroactively, but a Unison dealer told me that it's only "okay," on the level of, say, a Pro-Ject Phono Box (SS), and that for the $250 they were asking I could do better.
I've been thinking seriously of buying and building a Bottlehead Seduction phono stage and pairing it with one of the better MM cartridges out there (maybe Shure or Ortofon) and I was wondering what people more knowledgeable then I (that would be all of you) think of that, along with how it might mesh with the rest of my system.
P.S. — I understand that the Seduction would limit me to MM cartridges, since it doesn't really have the gain for MC.
I've been having a ball upgrading my mid-1980's system for the first time in over 20 years!
I now have a pair of Totem Arro's, a Unison Unico hybrid, integrated amp that was a "steal" here on Audiogon, a Music Hall CD 25.2 CD player for digital, and my dear, old SOTA Sapphire will soon be back from SOTA with a new bearing, belt and suspension springs. I'll soon be back in analogue business! :-)
The Sapphire has a Linn Basik tonearm on it, along with a very ancient Audioquest cartridge that will obviously need to be replaced. The tonearm will have to stay for the foreseeable future... by the time I buy a phono stage and interconnects and a new cartridge, my budget will be thoroughly maxed out for awhile.
It turns out that you can buy the phono card for the Unico and install it retroactively, but a Unison dealer told me that it's only "okay," on the level of, say, a Pro-Ject Phono Box (SS), and that for the $250 they were asking I could do better.
I've been thinking seriously of buying and building a Bottlehead Seduction phono stage and pairing it with one of the better MM cartridges out there (maybe Shure or Ortofon) and I was wondering what people more knowledgeable then I (that would be all of you) think of that, along with how it might mesh with the rest of my system.
P.S. — I understand that the Seduction would limit me to MM cartridges, since it doesn't really have the gain for MC.