I recently bought a Soundsmith MCP2 phono preamp to compare to my MC2300 preamp with Gold Lion tubes.Turntable is VPI Classic Three with Classic Three tonearm,Audience AU24 phono cables and Soundsmith Sussuro Pauua phono cartridge. Output of MCP2 goes to Aux input of C2300 via Nordost Tyr interconnects. The magnitude of improvement the MCP2 brought to my analog setup is phenomenal! While the MC2300's tube phono stage is very good, the MCP2 blew it away! Excuse the audio cliches, but multiple veils were removed, hidden details of recordings were revealed, and musical dynamics were almost frightening! Peter Lederman's Soundsmith MCP2 phono stage is one of the great bargains in high end audio. The ability to fine tune capacitance up to 5K by the simple turn of the top mounted control makes this phono preamp extremely versatile for all low output moving coil or moving iron phono cartridges. I love it! And all for $800 dollars. I've owned phono stages which sold for up to $8000, and not one of them were superior to the MCP2.
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