I totally disagree with the logic used for dismissing of the design of these pre-amps. With phono pre-amps you are dealing with an extremely low level signal (particularly in the case of moving coil cartridges) which needs to be amplified by a significant amount. This is very difficult to do without inadvertently adding a lot of unwanted noise. Tubes amps are inherently noisy compared to solid state amplifiers so using tubes to do the amplification at the early stage is going to create a much noisier output which would then require a tremendous amount of additional noise reduction circuitry to be added. That not only adds a great deal of extra cost to the amplifier, it also causes there to be other trade-offs as you will unavoidably lose some of your actual signal when you attempt to remove noise from the signal. No filter is perfect no matter how well designed. These tube pre-amps attack the problem in the most efficient, optimal and cost-effective way. They use the solid state part of the amplifier to amplify the low-level input signal as cleanly as possible and only use the tubes to condition the signal at the output stage to give it that nice tubey richness. This results in the cleanest possible signal you can achieve that still has that tube-amp "feel" at the lowest possible cost. It is totally unrealistic to expect these companies to be able to achieve the signal quality results they do with an all-tube amp at this price point so you are being completely unfair and unrealistic in your assessment of these amplifiers. IMO, these companies have come up with the best possible solution for solving the problem given the constraints of price and performance placed upon them. If you want the job to be done as well with nothing but tubes then expect to have to pay several times more for the amplifier but if you only want to spend the kind of money they charge for these amps, this is by far the best you can do in the real world.
Hmm. Difficult to comment as I am at a different price point. I found that very ProJect to be dreadful and moved to a Fosgate Signature. Far better. Then Benedict Audio Hothead (one one TT) and Perreaux Audiant on second TT. ProJect should stick to turntables. In my humble opinion you should forget about tubes (valves) unless you are are spending $2K on a phono stage. Actually even then it is easier to have a Solid State phono stage and have that valve warmth later - Preamp for my choice or at the power amp level. Even better might be a Step Up Transformer into a quiet MM phono stage followed by a tube pre-amp or integrated amplifier. My point is this: it is difficult to avoid noise with tubes particularly with low level signals - so have the tubes at a later point in the chain.
Pro-ject tube RIAA amplifiers has no Ic´s in the signal. At least not in the later model, I see this is a older video, so it can have changed. The new Tube Box S2 and Tube Box DS2 is straight through the tubes.
Hey man. Have a quick question I'm hoping you can help me with. I picked up a TADAC preamp yesterday at my local thrift store for $1. It's in great shape, and powers up and the tubes glow and everything. I can't find much info on it, so my question is - is TADAC a high quality manufacturer, and do you have any idea what one is worth? Thanks for your time.
I am new with the tube amps. Since the Yaqin MC 13S does not have a phono input, would you just take the output from the MS 23B and connect them to any of the aux audio input of the MC 13S? Much thanks.
Hello. I am looking for a RIAA amplifier on a budget, it would be nice if it could be customized. Could somebody suggest me a device? Only transistor or opamps design. Thank you. Also I would be interested in collaboration on topics such as HQ audio devices.
I know this is 7 years old, but it is still good information. There are different types of tube phono pre-amps. There are also still a couple of fakes around. Some, particularly the cheaper with only 2 tubes, are using the tubes as buffers just to add some of the harmonics to give it a tube like sound. They are not fake as such, but they are marketed badly. You do need to do your research if you want a true tube pre-amp. Buffer types still add the harmonics, so most don't ruin it as such. Still better than most integrated pre-amps
One not only needs to have the tube sound from a preamp but it must have the proper equalization in order to sound correctly. It must conform to RIAA standards for proper sound quality. A preamp without proper equalization is only doing half of the job.
Yes i am happy with it and i didn't even change to tubes yet even though everybody recommends changing the originals cause they are really cheap and don't sound good. But i like em. So i would like it even more if one day i put in better quality tubes. I'm not 100% sure it it just uses transistors to amplify the sound and than use the tubes just to add a tube like sound to it. Bit it's the closest thing you can get. And the price is hard to beat. Yes there is this very very low constant hum. But it's so low you can not here it when you play a record. The surface noise of the record is louder than the hum. And i doubt that anybody will ever listen to there records so loud that you can her the hum in the silent parts between each song.
My question is what is the benefit to a tube preamp in the reproduction of music? Coming from a background in music, particularly guitar, one reason why I prefer a tube amp when i play is the warmth of the sound aka the slight distortion i get when playing on the clean channel. Don't tube amps in the reproduction of music add a miniscule amount of distortion and thus not accurately recreate the sound?
+Laser Rot Maybe. But that warmer sound is what many people like. Thats also one of the reasons many people like Vinyl. And i think it's just a tiny bit more pleasing for the ears. Don't know why. But it just sounds a bit better. The Bass is "vibrating" a bit. It's just nice. And also nice to look at.
@@freund333 Do you still have your MS23? I can offer you a replacement board for you to try, no cost at all, would be great to get your evaluation of it. All you have to do is drill out an extra hole to 28mm, easy with a cheap stepped cone cutter, I will provide a template for you. The internal wires you snip are re-connected via small terminal blocks so no soldering needed. Board will be correctly set up for RIAA but of course no use to you if you have sold on the MS23.
Great informative video. I recently got into vinyl and am trying to learn as much as possible. I picked up a second hand "sound of the wood" record player that was highly modified. The cartridge is a denon dl-110 MC cartridge and I was looking for good preamp to match it up. One thing I learned really quickly was that a quality tube preamp that can handle MC cartridges is really expensive. I found a lot of hybrids out there...but that defeats the purpose. I decided to get a solid state preamp (cambridge CP2) because even if I did shell out big bucks for the tube preamp, I would have to shell out even more for a quality tube amplifier. So in the name of cost savings, I decided to go solid state at this time.
Yes it is a bad cartridge you are correct you could use an upgrade on your turntable as well enjoy the upgrade path the the v15 is also a poor choice for a cartridge it really accentuates the noise on the record
No, I have one that I now no longer use. However it is not a very good circuit design. There is a tear down video of it here which upgrades the circuit. ruclips.net/video/eSt5KbBcDEo/видео.html
@@dawnrose3865 Hi Dawn, thanks for your reply. In all honesty with all the failed mods I have tried and time spent, I ended up purchasing a Quad Twenty Four P phono stage. Yes expensive, but wonderful.
@@jimdandy2024 Hi Jim, first off aplogies, my wife was logged in there! Yeah, I was looking for a good valve pre and the lesbox modded ms23b interested me, found one on a facebook page for sale premodded with all the hard work done so thought I would give it a go, have yet to plug it in (turntable is in storage atm due to housework) but hopefully getting it re-instated before christmas holidays begin! All the best! :)
@@matthewcarlrose I'd be interested in what you think about it once you have it set up. I'm quite handy with a soldering iron, but I was a bit reluctant to take this mod on without an unbiased opinion on it's performance. I look forward to what you have to say about it. Best regards.
Thanks for cover up all these fakes! But be fair and open your favourite... You will see that there is a "sand" meand a semiconductor as outputdriver included. But the good news is, that this "power" stage did not do anything positive ( and hopfully negative ) to the sound. As simple rule: Two tubes in a phono preamp almost allways use a semiconductor driver on output. One tube is allways a fake.
Your MS23 will sound much better if you can do my conversion detailed here;- www.g4cnh.co.uk/ The work has been done by many , including those who have never soldered before and the difference is amazing. You get rid of the active feedback circuit by swapping in a passive filter circuit and the terrible transistor buffer is replaced by another extra tube. You must try Svetlana winged =C= 12AX7's which are on eBay, look for those with the bright nickel plates. These seem to complement the MS23 so well. Best Regards, Les
You didn't even look at the Pro ject inside, it is one of the highest reviewed phono amps on the market, yet you automatically dismissed it as not worth the money. Extremely poor reviewing skills.
@@illiniheel67 The point of this video was not to review the overall quality of the preamps. The point was to tell people that there is a difference between a REAL tube phono preamp and a solid state one that only uses the tubes as some kind of a gimmick to add the typical tube sound.
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I totally disagree with the logic used for dismissing of the design of these pre-amps. With phono pre-amps you are dealing with an extremely low level signal (particularly in the case of moving coil cartridges) which needs to be amplified by a significant amount. This is very difficult to do without inadvertently adding a lot of unwanted noise. Tubes amps are inherently noisy compared to solid state amplifiers so using tubes to do the amplification at the early stage is going to create a much noisier output which would then require a tremendous amount of additional noise reduction circuitry to be added. That not only adds a great deal of extra cost to the amplifier, it also causes there to be other trade-offs as you will unavoidably lose some of your actual signal when you attempt to remove noise from the signal. No filter is perfect no matter how well designed.
These tube pre-amps attack the problem in the most efficient, optimal and cost-effective way. They use the solid state part of the amplifier to amplify the low-level input signal as cleanly as possible and only use the tubes to condition the signal at the output stage to give it that nice tubey richness. This results in the cleanest possible signal you can achieve that still has that tube-amp "feel" at the lowest possible cost. It is totally unrealistic to expect these companies to be able to achieve the signal quality results they do with an all-tube amp at this price point so you are being completely unfair and unrealistic in your assessment of these amplifiers. IMO, these companies have come up with the best possible solution for solving the problem given the constraints of price and performance placed upon them. If you want the job to be done as well with nothing but tubes then expect to have to pay several times more for the amplifier but if you only want to spend the kind of money they charge for these amps, this is by far the best you can do in the real world.
Hmm. Difficult to comment as I am at a different price point. I found that very ProJect to be dreadful and moved to a Fosgate Signature. Far better. Then Benedict Audio Hothead (one one TT) and Perreaux Audiant on second TT. ProJect should stick to turntables. In my humble opinion you should forget about tubes (valves) unless you are are spending $2K on a phono stage. Actually even then it is easier to have a Solid State phono stage and have that valve warmth later - Preamp for my choice or at the power amp level. Even better might be a Step Up Transformer into a quiet MM phono stage followed by a tube pre-amp or integrated amplifier. My point is this: it is difficult to avoid noise with tubes particularly with low level signals - so have the tubes at a later point in the chain.
I get ALL of my audio advice from serial killers.
Ja-Chin. The MS 23B is the one to get for sure. I put some 12AX7 Tungsram NOS tubes in mine and it sounds lovely.
the ms 23 b uses a transistor buffer as well so not all valve
Pro-ject tube RIAA amplifiers has no Ic´s in the signal. At least not in the later model, I see this is a older video, so it can have changed. The new Tube Box S2 and Tube Box DS2 is straight through the tubes.
Hey man. Have a quick question I'm hoping you can help me with. I picked up a TADAC preamp yesterday at my local thrift store for $1. It's in great shape, and powers up and the tubes glow and everything. I can't find much info on it, so my question is - is TADAC a high quality manufacturer, and do you have any idea what one is worth? Thanks for your time.
the tubes are only used as a buffer to get a bit of color what do you expect for that price
Where did you get that tube clock? Nevermind I found it, man those are not cheap! Thanks for the informative video.
Cool video. Also, killer Jurassic Park pinball machine!!
the best phono pre is to make and design your as i did 2 fets per channel and 1 12AU7 buffer vale super quiet and true sound
if you wanna know how it pronounced it's 'psathin'.
I am new with the tube amps. Since the Yaqin MC 13S does not have a phono input, would you just take the output from the MS 23B and connect them to any of the aux audio input of the MC 13S? Much thanks.
Sorry but i don't know that much about it.
Yep, the MS23 just has the task of applying RIAA correction after which you can feed its output into any available inputs on the MS13S.
Excellent! Wish you'd shown the innards of the Yaqin. Thanks
Pro trick: you can watch movies on flixzone. Been using them for watching a lot of movies during the lockdown.
Hello. I am looking for a RIAA amplifier on a budget, it would be nice if it could be customized. Could somebody suggest me a device? Only transistor or opamps design. Thank you. Also I would be interested in collaboration on topics such as HQ audio devices.
I know this is 7 years old, but it is still good information. There are different types of tube phono pre-amps. There are also still a couple of fakes around. Some, particularly the cheaper with only 2 tubes, are using the tubes as buffers just to add some of the harmonics to give it a tube like sound. They are not fake as such, but they are marketed badly. You do need to do your research if you want a true tube pre-amp. Buffer types still add the harmonics, so most don't ruin it as such. Still better than most integrated pre-amps
One not only needs to have the tube sound from a preamp but it must have the proper equalization in order to sound correctly. It must conform to RIAA standards for proper sound quality. A preamp without proper equalization is only doing half of the job.
With this turntable it will make no difference which phono preamp you are using
I have this model and it produces a lot of humming.
So is the Yaqin also a hybrid tube pre amp? Im so confused, if its using transistors why not get a little bear T7 for much less.
After reading a few comments it looks like the little bear T7 just sucks.
freund333 so were you happy with the Yaqin? What makes it so much better?
Yes i am happy with it and i didn't even change to tubes yet even though everybody recommends changing the originals cause they are really cheap and don't sound good. But i like em. So i would like it even more if one day i put in better quality tubes. I'm not 100% sure it it just uses transistors to amplify the sound and than use the tubes just to add a tube like sound to it. Bit it's the closest thing you can get. And the price is hard to beat. Yes there is this very very low constant hum. But it's so low you can not here it when you play a record. The surface noise of the record is louder than the hum. And i doubt that anybody will ever listen to there records so loud that you can her the hum in the silent parts between each song.
My question is what is the benefit to a tube preamp in the reproduction of music? Coming from a background in music, particularly guitar, one reason why I prefer a tube amp when i play is the warmth of the sound aka the slight distortion i get when playing on the clean channel. Don't tube amps in the reproduction of music add a miniscule amount of distortion and thus not accurately recreate the sound?
+Laser Rot Maybe. But that warmer sound is what many people like. Thats also one of the reasons many people like Vinyl. And i think it's just a tiny bit more pleasing for the ears. Don't know why. But it just sounds a bit better. The Bass is "vibrating" a bit. It's just nice. And also nice to look at.
@@freund333 Do you still have your MS23? I can offer you a replacement board for you to try, no cost at all, would be great to get your evaluation of it. All you have to do is drill out an extra hole to 28mm, easy with a cheap stepped cone cutter, I will provide a template for you. The internal wires you snip are re-connected via small terminal blocks so no soldering needed. Board will be correctly set up for RIAA but of course no use to you if you have sold on the MS23.
Great informative video. I recently got into vinyl and am trying to learn as much as possible. I picked up a second hand "sound of the wood" record player that was highly modified. The cartridge is a denon dl-110 MC cartridge and I was looking for good preamp to match it up. One thing I learned really quickly was that a quality tube preamp that can handle MC cartridges is really expensive. I found a lot of hybrids out there...but that defeats the purpose.
I decided to get a solid state preamp (cambridge CP2) because even if I did shell out big bucks for the tube preamp, I would have to shell out even more for a quality tube amplifier. So in the name of cost savings, I decided to go solid state at this time.
Yes it is a bad cartridge you are correct you could use an upgrade on your turntable as well enjoy the upgrade path the the v15 is also a poor choice for a cartridge it really accentuates the noise on the record
doesnt the ms23b use a hybrid design like all the other ones you have dismissed???
No, I have one that I now no longer use. However it is not a very good circuit design. There is a tear down video of it here which upgrades the circuit. ruclips.net/video/eSt5KbBcDEo/видео.html
@@jimdandy2024 One year later, I have purchased a pre-lesboxed MS23b! :P
@@dawnrose3865
Hi Dawn, thanks for your reply. In all honesty with all the failed mods I have tried and time spent, I ended up purchasing a Quad Twenty Four P phono stage. Yes expensive, but wonderful.
@@jimdandy2024 Hi Jim, first off aplogies, my wife was logged in there! Yeah, I was looking for a good valve pre and the lesbox modded ms23b interested me, found one on a facebook page for sale premodded with all the hard work done so thought I would give it a go, have yet to plug it in (turntable is in storage atm due to housework) but hopefully getting it re-instated before christmas holidays begin! All the best! :)
@@matthewcarlrose
I'd be interested in what you think about it once you have it set up. I'm quite handy with a soldering iron, but I was a bit reluctant to take this mod on without an unbiased opinion on it's performance. I look forward to what you have to say about it. Best regards.
A bunch of Greek letters there, it pronounce "Psathin" (ΨΑΘΙΝ)
You are very funny guy +ThePaco45acp
Thanks for cover up all these fakes! But be fair and open your favourite... You will see that there is a "sand" meand a semiconductor as outputdriver included.
But the good news is, that this "power" stage did not do anything positive ( and hopfully negative ) to the sound.
As simple rule: Two tubes in a phono preamp almost allways use a semiconductor driver on output. One tube is allways a fake.
the yaqin in factory is not a true all tube preamp uses a buffer stage i own this aswell
its called a buzzer lolzz
you need to upgrade the turntable, that dual is just not a good model
Your MS23 will sound much better if you can do my conversion detailed here;- www.g4cnh.co.uk/
The work has been done by many , including those who have never soldered before and the difference is amazing.
You get rid of the active feedback circuit by swapping in a passive filter circuit and the terrible transistor buffer is replaced by another extra tube. You must try Svetlana winged =C= 12AX7's which are on eBay, look for those with the bright nickel plates. These seem to complement the MS23 so well. Best Regards, Les
I've got one with winged c's. It is brilliant, just brilliant.
I totally agree - the conversion is definitely worth it!
m75 is a really good cartage recording quality it will be the rubbish RIAA design
You didn't even look at the Pro ject inside, it is one of the highest reviewed phono amps on the market, yet you automatically dismissed it as not worth the money. Extremely poor reviewing skills.
..... Also, you never opened the Yaqin so how do you know if those tubes are effective either?
@@illiniheel67 The point of this video was not to review the overall quality of the preamps. The point was to tell people that there is a difference between a REAL tube phono preamp and a solid state one that only uses the tubes as some kind of a gimmick to add the typical tube sound.
Correct! Cheeky Chynese decided to sell mad cheap tube preamp that uses op amps and tubes as a buffer. Tubes on 15-18VAC.. LOL Who are they kidding'?