Lets hear from Fosgate Signature Phono Preamp owners
 

The Fosgate Signature Phono Preamp certainly seems to represent a good value among the plethora of phono stage preamplifiers available. If memory serves me right, there are a number of owners here. I may be considering an external phono stage preamp for a future purchase. I don't want to turn this into a "You should get this one" thread. I would like to hear about the Fosgate Phono Preamp from owners and perhaps those who have auditioned one.

The things I am most curious about are it's noise level without a signal, it's decibel gain with a low output moving coil cartridge, its overall sound, and whether tube rolling has produced any advantages in performance.


http://www.musicalsurroundings.com/i...eSig_grdnt.jpg

I know we have quite a few users here...

Noise level about the same as your mcintosh phono section.....swap out the stock tubes in the Fosgate and it will be a bit quieter. You will find most if not all tube phono sections have a bit of tube noise and if your current pre tube noise bugs you then look elsewhere. The small amount of tube noise doesn't bother me, yes I can hear a tiny bit of hiss a foot or so away from the speaker with it cranked up fairly loud but you must ask your self do you listen to your system with your ears a foot from the speaker :D I cannot hear any noise at my listening position.

The Fosgate responds to tube rolling fairly well and a nice thing about it is you don't need matched pairs....another neat thing is the tubes circuit is in series so you can use different manufactures of tubes in each of the three V positions.....I find V3 is most important then V1 &2 positions....V4 is not so important and the same with V5 & 6 positions. The 6X4 can taylor the last bit of tone your chasing.....a fun stage to use.

Sound wise I thought it bettered the c2300 by a wide margin......this isn't to be takin as a dis on the c2300, its strengths lie in other places like the pre section, no need for extra shelf space, cables, etc....but not its phono section IMO.....overall the Fosgate is a nice sounding stage. Right now I'm using its MM section on my SPU and SUT rig, I'm getting wondeful sound from this set up....

Dan, Cadenza Black? You should try loading it at 30 ohms or thereabouts. :yes: I believe Fosgate starts at 100?

Cadenza works well at 100 ohms as well at 30 ohms......it all depends on the phono circuit and how its loading is implemented .....

Of course it will Jeff. As a rule of thumb, loading resistor of the phono stage should be 10-20x the MC cart internal impedance. 1-5x for SUT. I tend to like to load on the lower side of the equation, even lower than 10x for a smoother, fuller tonal balance. It is taste dependent and as always YMMV. :D It was just a suggestion for Dan. I'd probably be tempted to try the Ortofon SUT with that cart first and see what happens. :yes:

I am loading the Ortofon Cadenza Black with 50 ohms through the C2300. 100 ohms sounds a bit thinner although still enjoyable, but at 200 ohms and higher it loses its sparkle and life.

I did not realize the Fosgate was limited to 100 ohms as it's lowest load resistance. I imagine being able to roll tubes for tone adjustment may help compensate to a degree.

Serge,

I'm well aware of the 10-20 rule....I have over ten phono stages in my house and can tell you that they don't all load the same using the same cartridge. There are many varibles in the over all sonics with each phono stage however the 10-20 is a good place to start. For instance my Benz LPs has a recommended loading of 400> ohms and on my Steelhead I like the 400 ohm setting but on my Aesthetix Rhea Sig I like 500 or higher and even wide open.....as I said its how the circuit is implemented.

Dan....here is a good read and a link to the discussion Does Cartridge Loading Really Matter?

by galibier_numero_un on Thu Aug 12, 2010 9:04 am

OK, a provocative thread title, and by no means does loading not matter. I got your attention however, didn't I?

In a recent Audiogon thread, I pointed out how wildly system dependent cartridge loading can be, and it’s almost impossible to give universal advice on the topic. People call into question, Dynavector’s recommendation for the XV1s – to load it anywhere from 35 ohms on up. I’ve found this to be the case, as I've run the Dynavector XV1s anywhere from a 35 ohm load to wide open (no loading resistors). The latter (no additional load) is in my Atma-sphere MP-1 preamp.

I'm coming to the conclusion that the cartridge doesn't care as much as we think it does, so in this sense, the thread title is correct.

The conclusion I'm arriving at is that minor ultrasonic peaks can "disturb" some phono stages more than others. Does this mean that phono stages like that of the Atma-sphere are better because they're more immune to these sorts of variations?

In one sense, I'd say yes for the following reasons. For years, I've been hearing several designers (Mike Sanders of Quicksilver amongst them) say that the more you load down a cartridge, the more you compromise its performance - especially in the realm of dynamic range, and you all know how much I value dynamic performance.

Well, the catch is, if you run unloaded with some phono stages, you’ll have the dynamics, but the tone will be so brutal that it rips the fillings out of your teeth. You're not going to enjoy your hi-fi, so load you must.

It is in this sense that a phono stage like the Atma-sphere MP-1 and the Quicksilver preamp add sonic value. They let you run your cartridge with minimal load (frequently with no additional load at all), so you can have your cake and eat it too (dynamics with no tonal penalty).

Richard pointed me to a thread from December of 2009 in which Jonathan Carr of Lyra pulled all of this together. Jonathan expounded on my above observations – adding his broad experience as a cartridge designer who gets what music sounds like.

Here’s the link to that post: AudiogoN Forums: New Lyra Delos Cartridge. There are a lot of juicy tidbits in this thread, and I suggest you follow it from the beginning, but I want to quote the part relevant to this discussion to pique your interest further:

Jeff.......Thank you for the reprint of the post Does Cartridge Loading Really Matter?, and the link to Jonathn Carr's comments. Very interesting. What I gleaned from all of this is it seems moving coil cartridge loading is more important for taming phono interconnect peaks due to capacitance than it is for proper output from the moving coil cartridge itself. In addition, loading is open to personal listening preference.