Dedicated phono pre-amp

So is everyone just recording straight from their decks via their DJ mixer into an MPC, or are using something a little more high end in your signal chain such as an external phono pre-amp? Sure, your DJ mixer already has one but its a DJ mixer.

Basically, I'm convinced that having a bypassing your DJ mixer and using a dedicated high-end pre-amp will yield better results in sound quality. Obviously other factors should be taken into consideration; Cables/leads, type of stylus/cartridge, turntable make (DJ or audiophile).

Has any1 here made the switch, and if so how are the results?

It mainly depends on your mixer's preamps .....
No probs w/ Vestax and Rane's ones for example.
I personally used an ART dedicated preamp coz' I am not deejaying at all and no need for a mixer.
Plus I prefer to have a "straight" signal in the MPC

But some would prefer to eq while sampling for example ....

IMO, the most important is to get a good signal/noise ratio

I'm using the Rane TTM 56, and yeah it's good and useful for what I need to do + I am a DJ. But I'm just saying that I'm sure there are benefits of using a dedicated high-end pre.

I use a dedicated BBE phono preamp.

i sample through an old harman kardon amp. it sounds better than my old vestax mixer.

i've been thinking of buying one of these preamp kits. only $70.
http://diyaudioprojects.com/Solid/JFET-Phono-Preamplifier-Kit/

I have always been a fan of the Harman sound and the diy project above looks great and probably sounds fantastic. If your trying to save some bread,this is a great one. I think I paid 50 bucks for it some years back. Only problem is it doesn't have a power button so you have to plug it in when you want to use it. Good luck with your search!
http://i1266.photobucket.com/albums/jj522/9somedude/At-PEQ3.jpg

It might be me, but you can't get any higher with a Rane mixer. You got everything at your disposal, you got quality pre, you can sample with EQ, can sample more than one source at the same time...so whats the issue? 9mean.

I have never heard a rane mixer myself, but i'm sure they are great (judging by their reputation). Nevertheless, i'd place a bet that a good dedicated phono-pre will blow it out of the water.

Just an example: 500$ mixer vs. 500$ phono-pre. One company has to design and produce a mixer, including ins and outs, faders, blablabla, AND a phono-pre, budget is 500$. The other company has to design and produce... ONLY a phono-pre, budget is 500$. Which phono-pre will sound better (let's say both companies strive for a humble product with great quality)?

On the other hand... since you're entering the "audiophile" world with these products, there's bound to be endless products out there that'll sell for thousands and don't justify their price. So in regard of sampling, i wouldn't go crazy and buy a phono-pre for a few thousand bucks.

The best bang for buck is probably something like Clear Audio or Cambridge Audio. I've read countless reviews on these products... in the end i got the 640p from cambridge audio, as it seems to perform almost as good as phono-pre's that cost 1 grand or more.

What is also important is the turntable, tonearm, cartridge, etc... which should all be considered as part of the chain. For example: If you're using a 10 year old super cheap cartridge that's been used and abused, you probably should buy a new cartridge first before buying a phono-preamp.

And to answer the OPs question...

Yes, i've made the switch from a Yamaha (ax397) hi-fi amp (which has a seperated phono-pre (withing the case of the amp) that get's praised as "great quality" in reviews) to a dedicated phono-pre (cambridge audio 640p). The difference in quality is immense! The definition of details, the definition of bass, the stereo image, etc... is worlds apart from what i got out of the yamaha amp. Simply no comparison. I have in the meanwhile replaced my yamaha amp with an old Rexox amp (vintage amps are supposed to have really nice phono-pres)... still no comparison to the dedicated phono-pre (and the revox amp is serviced/old parts replaced and sounds like new).

I use an SL1210MKII with a shure me97xe cartridge by the way, properly set-up and dialed in.

PS: I don't have the yamaha amp anymore, but if someone is interested i'll make a recording for comparison between the revox amp and the dedicated phono-pre.

jibber wrote:I have never heard a rane mixer myself, but i'm sure they are great (judging by their reputation). Nevertheless, i'd place a bet that a good dedicated phono-pre will blow it out of the water.

Just an example: 500$ mixer vs. 500$ phono-pre. One company has to design and produce a mixer, including ins and outs, faders, blablabla, AND a phono-pre, budget is 500$. The other company has to design and produce... ONLY a phono-pre, budget is 500$. Which phono-pre will sound better (let's say both companies strive for a humble product with great quality)?

On the other hand... since you're entering the "audiophile" world with these products, there's bound to be endless products out there that'll sell for thousands and don't justify their price. So in regard of sampling, i wouldn't go crazy and buy a phono-pre for a few thousand bucks.

The best bang for buck is probably something like Clear Audio or Cambridge Audio. I've read countless reviews on these products... in the end i got the 640p from cambridge audio, as it seems to perform almost as good as phono-pre's that cost 1 grand or more.

What is also important is the turntable, tonearm, cartridge, etc... which should all be considered as part of the chain. For example: If you're using a 10 year old super cheap cartridge that's been used and abused, you probably should buy a new cartridge first before buying a phono-preamp.

And to answer the OPs question...

Yes, i've made the switch from a Yamaha (ax397) hi-fi amp (which has a seperated phono-pre (withing the case of the amp) that get's praised as "great quality" in reviews) to a dedicated phono-pre (cambridge audio 640p). The difference in quality is immense! The definition of details, the definition of bass, the stereo image, etc... is worlds apart from what i got out of the yamaha amp. Simply no comparison. I have in the meanwhile replaced my yamaha amp with an old Rexox amp (vintage amps are supposed to have really nice phono-pres)... still no comparison to the dedicated phono-pre (and the revox amp is serviced/old parts replaced and sounds like new).

I use an SL1210MKII with a shure me97xe cartridge by the way, properly set-up and dialed in.

PS: I don't have the yamaha amp anymore, but if someone is interested i'll make a recording for comparison between the revox amp and the dedicated phono-pre.

Awesome reply man, I was actually looking at the Cambridge line a few weeks ago along with a few others. Yeah so I'll probably keep doing some research on good combinations of pre-amp and stylus as it seems like a no-brainer to lean towards the high end scale for recording; but in saying that, if you look back at dudes like Marley Marl using whatever gear he could find to bang out some of the best tunes in hip hop history wasn't a result of using Audiophile favored equipment (pre-mastering).

They probably used technics turntables, which aren't bad turntables to begin with. When it comes to mastering i'm almost sure they took their stuff to professional studios with expensive consoles, outboard gear and 2 inch tape machines... something you can hardly keep up with in a bedroom studio.

From recent experience, the worst thing i did was sampling through this chain of turntable, shure cartridge, nice phono-pre.... into the 2KXL. I did a comparison of different samplers a few days ago, and the 2KXL managed to ruin the whole improvement of sound i got out of the new cartridge and phono-pre. In the future i'll record into better samplers, or my audio interface, copy that to the MPC and chop it up in there.

jibber wrote:In the future i'll record into better samplers, or my audio interface, copy that to the MPC and chop it up in there.

I was down with this approach initially when I first got the MPC but every1 here hated the idea and insisted I just record into the MPC. The main benefit is an analogue recording (16bit/44.1khz). So far the greatest respect I have for this unit (MPC 1000) is that my vinyl recordings sound like vinyl recordings, as opposed to recording in Pro Tools, edit, noise reduction, dither, export, chop in ReCycle, sequence in Reason, re-record sequences into Pro Tools with the end result nothing like the original recorded quality of black round wax.

Don't worry about the MPC1000, if it's anything like the 500/2500, i'm sure the recording quality is just fine. I was actually surprised how well the 2500 held its ground against an E-Mu sampler and an ASR-10. It's just the 2000xl that made everything sound like a 10 year old sound card bought for 5 bucks (don't get me wrong, i love the 2KXL for its pads and workflow, it's just that i was really shocked at the sound quality from recording into the machine).

If you have a working receiver, even Radio Shack brand, that was manufactured in 70s' or 80s', try using it as phono preamp, they are usually better sounding than your mid range DJ mixer. Electronics in 70s' and 80s' were much well built than todays electronics.
I used to use a low-end Vestax 2-channel mixer (still works) for my record player (SL-1200 MK 2) but I wasn't satisfied with the sound quality, although it is not noisy mixer.
Now I use a custom Phono preamp (uses op-amp) & headphone amp combo unit (I asked my brother to design it) and I use it for listening and sampling.
However, I see many great beat makers use portable record player to sample records. I think in the end, it doesn't matter what you use. But I can tell you that your samples will sound better with better preamp.