Putting a super light phono amp inside the tonearm?

[dreamth]

I think that Thorsten suggested at some point the ise of opa1632 in open loop for such applications, wouldn't it be wiser to make the gain lower for just a buffer?Its input noise sounds very appealing.

 

[scott wurcer]

And given the wide range of MC impedances it makes sense to have as low a voltage noise as possible to be fair to them all?

Not in my experience, John Curl has made a living off of his 0.4nV pre-amp. I've never had a setup where you could hear anything with the volume set at a comfortable listening level and the stylus lifted. The noise thing sometimes gets down to the mine is better than yours contest, there are always the IRF FET's that do <0.2nV running at absurd drain currents, there are also at least two 32 parallel BF862 pre-amps out there that do <0.3nV

 

[billshurv]

Yup, noise figure drag racing for willy waving rights is rife. In the same way that some on here build low ppm power amps and then try and get lower for the intellectual challenge I approve of it even though logically its really not necessary*.


*and I am just as guilty as others on occasion of chasing these dreams for the hell of it.

 

[rayfutrell]

"You can't easily do the "in the headshell " buffer with a bi-polar."
Why Not? In the 1970s I looked into putting two 2N4250 emitter followers into the head shell of my tonearm. That would require two more wires for +- 15 volt power which was doable. I was going to use direct coupling because I figured that running the emitter followers at 100 micro Amps wouldn't put much current thru the cartridge. I even designed a little PC board but never got around to trying the idea.

 

[scott wurcer]

That would require two more wires for +- 15 volt power which was doable.

Yes, even wiring a tonearm for differential operation is a show stopper for many people. Just talking in the context of using what is there without mod.