Trinity Phono Stage ... anyone hear this or have opinions?

... or FM Acoustics

jfrech said:

That said, I have had 2 friends buy the Allnic H5000....and they both said the same as you...apparently this Allnic is a seriously great phono stage

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The virus is spreading !!!!
I haven't abandoned SS in the source. I still use my Pass XP-30 pre. I will most likey try the Pass XS pre in early 2014 when I hear more feedback about it as long as it is significantly better compared to the XP-30. I would like to try a Tube pre but the selections are few with 3-4 xlr inputs and a tape loop which is a requirement for me.

rockitman said:

I'm done with solid state phono pre's after hearing my H5000 that just destroys my XP-25 from a musical standpoint. The sound staging, imaging, transparency, micro and macro dynamics are superior, not to mention a far more accurate timbre in terms of voices and instruments. I give up a little in bass solidity and noise. It's a more than worthwhile trade off for me in my system.

Fremer does do an introductory review of the trinity in Stereophile this month (a more detailed review next year). The fact remains, SS is not going to touch the musical enjoyment and realism of tubes, imo when it comes to phono stages. My short summary of the XP-25 vs Allnic H5000....the XP sounds like a quality recording, the H5000...a live performance.

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Christian, PM me if you are interested in selling your XP-25.

jfrech said:

I agree, my MC2 Finish is very "needy" incredibly picky on the the phono stage and exposes all sorts of noise. It's the opposite of my Lyra Atlas in this regard...which seemingly is a wonderful match with my Nagra VPS. Can you share more info on how the Trinity sounded? Especially vs the other phono stages you mention like the Tron..

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As you are a fellow allaerts fan you likely have the "cart" before the horse problem that i do
Having trouble letting go of the finish so on a pilgrimage to find its mate.
Basically, i love what the allaerts CAN do, and so i've been revolving phono stages to find something that brings out it's max. The vps as you prob have experienced, doesn't have approp gain to match. The arc ref phono is beautiful in all of the arc ways (i've been a big arc fan for 3-4 years), wide spacious soundstage and warmish midrange. With the finish, ref phono in high gain and running to Arc ref anni, and then with jazz, i was getting too much distracting noise on quiet parts of dynamic passages on classical and some indie electronic music (xx, daughter, etc). The Tron set up with high gain for lomc is very good. I have enjoyed it alot and prefer it to both the arc and vps in every way as it is revealing, musical and holographic in presentation. At RMAF i "heard" the allnic, the VAC statement, and the trinity. Quotation marks because of the difficulty of really hearing an individual component in a system other than one's own.
What shone with the trinity, though at RMAF it was paired with higher output allaerts mc1 boron, was the quiet noisefloor and really impressive dynamics. I agree with Fremer's comment re how dynamic this is but it is the gain and silence that match the finish in my system that have made me sit up and listen to what the right combo can do. Always an adventure

puroagave said:

i did the same then went back to a klyne system 7 phono stage. after three tubed phono sections in a row i think i found the right balance of tradeoffs.
the trinity looks interesting, does it use discrete devices and a switch mode PS?

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Rob, not familiar with the Klyne but will look it up. Agree with others that as much as i love tubes, sota solid state is wickedly good.
Trinity specs and some dry humour can be found in the manual
http://www.trinity-ed.de/typo/fileadmin/template/bilder/phono/PHONO PREAMP_manual.pdf

tunes said:

The arc ref phono is beautiful in all of the arc ways (i've been a big arc fan for 3-4 years), wide spacious soundstage and warmish midrange. With the finish, ref phono in high gain and running to Arc ref anni, and then with jazz, i was getting too much distracting noise on quiet parts of dynamic passages on classical and some indie electronic music (xx, daughter, etc)

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Are you talking about the Ref 2 or 10? I had the 10 here for a month and it was dead quiet, especially with the Ref 10 pre

tunes said:

As you are a fellow allaerts fan you likely have the "cart" before the horse problem that i do
Having trouble letting go of the finish so on a pilgrimage to find its mate.
Basically, i love what the allaerts CAN do, and so i've been revolving phono stages to find something that brings out it's max. The vps as you prob have experienced, doesn't have approp gain to match. The arc ref phono is beautiful in all of the arc ways (i've been a big arc fan for 3-4 years), wide spacious soundstage and warmish midrange. With the finish, ref phono in high gain and running to Arc ref anni, and then with jazz, i was getting too much distracting noise on quiet parts of dynamic passages on classical and some indie electronic music (xx, daughter, etc). The Tron set up with high gain for lomc is very good. I have enjoyed it alot and prefer it to both the arc and vps in every way as it is revealing, musical and holographic in presentation. At RMAF i "heard" the allnic, the VAC statement, and the trinity. Quotation marks because of the difficulty of really hearing an individual component in a system other than one's own.
What shone with the trinity, though at RMAF it was paired with higher output allaerts mc1 boron, was the quiet noisefloor and really impressive dynamics. I agree with Fremer's comment re how dynamic this is but it is the gain and silence that match the finish in my system that have made me sit up and listen to what the right combo can do. Always an adventure

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Hi.

I have been looking at new phono stages as well. I currently have the Allnic H3000 and I use it with a Lyra Olympos SL cartridge which has a very low an output as does the Allaerts Finish if not slightly lower. The Allnic H3000 has more than enough gain for the Olympos SL and for a tubed phono, even at high gain, is pretty quiet in my system. I was at RMAF as well, so you must have heard the Allnic H3000 since as I far I could tell, there weren't any rooms using the new Allnic H5000 DHT phono. I also heard the Audio Arts room that was using the Trinity phono, Koda preamp and CH Precision amps with Zellaton speakers. I agree that it is difficult, if not impossible to truly isolate what any component is contributing, but I did enjoy the analog playback in that room. I visited it twice and spent about an hour listening to vinyl in there on Saturday afternoon when the room wasn't very crowded. The sound was quiet, airy, resolved, fast and dynamic. I enjoyed what I heard alot and thought that I should give a solid state phono an audition in my system.

When I got back home, given its high praise, I tried to arrange an audition of the Vitus MP P201 phono stage. Unfortunately, there are none of those available for audition in the US at the moment. Likewise for the Vitus SP 102 phono stage. So then I contacted VAC (I know its a tubed phono) to see if I could audition their new Statement phono stage. Again, none available for audition at the moment. So then I contacted Constellation to see if I could arrange an audition of the Perseus phono stage and thanks to a wonderful Constellation dealer I was able to arrange a hassle free in home audition including the new Constellation outboard DC filter which sits between the outboard power supply and the main phono stage and further filters the power going to the phono stage. The Perseus is a wonderful phono stage complete with variable cartridge loading between 1 ohm and 1000 ohms in 1 ohm increments. Again the Perseus had enough gain for the very low output Olympos SL cartridge. I would use the same attributes to describe the Perseus as I would the Trinity - quiet, fast, dynamic, (not quite as airy as the Trinity based on what I heard at RMAF) and with very good bass punch and slam.

Finally, I had the opportunity to audition in my system for 1.5 days the new Allnic H5000 DHT phono stage. I would say that the way Christian (Rockitman) described the H5000 DHT in his posts above is very accurate and very similiar to what I heard. I would however add two additional sonic comments that really impressed me - the sense of space and the effortlessness of the music. The music just flowed regardless of volume with never any sense of strain regardless of what LP I played. I played cuts from about 18 different LP's across multiple music categories and it was stunning to hear. Given that I already owned the Allnic H3000 for the past 3 years I was expecting the H5000 DHT to be an improvement but not to the level that I heard. All three of these phono stages are very, very good (and similiar in retail price) and even though I didn't hear them, I am sure the Vitus and the VAC phono stages are wonderful as well. But the Allnic H5000 DHT just sounded so special to me in my system that I ordered it and hope to have it here in the next week or so.

Frank750 said:

Are you talking about the Ref 2 or 10? I had the 10 here for a month and it was dead quiet, especially with the Ref 10 pre

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Frank, the arc ref. 2 se.
The ref 10 sure looks awesome. What cartridge are you using? Low output > 0.2 ?

tunes said:

Frank, the arc ref. 2 se.
The ref 10 sure looks awesome. What cartridge are you using? Low output > 0.2 ?

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I actually didn't keep it. I had problems with the Ref10 preamp and after considering the problems I've had with tubes in the past, decided I didn't want to deal with the aggravation again. I ended up with a Pass Labs Xs Pre amp and will either wait for the Xs phono or track down another solid state phono. No more tubes for me. For the record, when I wasn't having problems with the Ref 10 combo, they were fantastic. I use a Goldfinger Statement so output isn't a problem.

tunes said:

Rob, not familiar with the Klyne but will look it up...

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don't brother you have to be an old fogey to know them, the newly minted audiophile would be excused. they actually make --no, practically invented -- sota ss phono preamps with a long and enviable track record well before anyone ever thought of producing a $30k phono stage.

Frank750 said:

I actually didn't keep it. I had problems with the Ref10 preamp and after considering the problems I've had with tubes in the past decided I didn't want to deal with the aggravation again. I ended up with a Pass Labs Xs Pre amp and will either wait for the Xs phono or track down another solid state phono. No more tubes for me. For the record, when I wasn't having problems with the Ref 10 combo, they were fantastic. I use a Goldfinger Statement so output isn't a problem.

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the statement 0.7 output is a different beast to the allaerts finish 0.2. This is one of the reasons I've been searching for quiet, high gain. love the arc gear, tubes and all. I had a couple of tubes go over the 4 or 5 years i've owned arc, but calvin has always set me up quickly with superb support and replacements.

Finish mc2 has coil impedance of 32ohm. Jan Allaerts is pretty specific about loading at 845 and setting vtf at 1.8g
I have to admit that i have stuck to his suggestions and have not exerimented. Jfrech, what is your preference in terms of VTA with your allaerts? As i prefer to set and forget, i use mine with arm horizontal to platter using a 180g lp with good results but would be interested in your experience.

Positive review on trinity phono setup with sperling and ch precision and zellaton ref on wizard 's blog today.

http://cybwiz.blogspot.ca/2014/01/zellaton-reference-with-ch-precision.html?m=1

rockitman said:

I'm done with solid state phono pre's after hearing my H5000 that just destroys my XP-25 from a musical standpoint. The sound staging, imaging, transparency, micro and macro dynamics are superior, not to mention a far more accurate timbre in terms of voices and instruments. I give up a little in bass solidity and noise. It's a more than worthwhile trade off for me in my system.

Fremer does do an introductory review of the trinity in Stereophile this month (a more detailed review next year). The fact remains, SS is not going to touch the musical enjoyment and realism of tubes, imo when it comes to phono stages. My short summary of the XP-25 vs Allnic H5000....the XP sounds like a quality recording, the H5000...a live performance.

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Christian, I am very surprised how much you are stereotyping SS and tubes. Really, you are comparing two components by two manufacturers, one which happens to use tubes and one which is solid state. Also, not that price is always an indicator of quality, the Allnic is about three times the price. You might try two other phonostages and find your opinion changes about tubes v. ss. It is like making the statement after listening to the two that Korean products are better than American made products and that you are done with American products.

Please take this the way I intend it, I get it, you are excited about the Allnic and I could not be happier for you. I just wanted to point out how I cannot argue with which one you prefer, but I can take issue with the overall generality of your statement.

Just to go on the record, even though I have not had tubes in my reference system for about 12 years and have never been happier, I still consider myself a tube guy.

Frank750: I read your post after I wrote mine.

+1

Frank750 said:

I actually didn't keep it. I had problems with the Ref10 preamp and after considering the problems I've had with tubes in the past decided I didn't want to deal with the aggravation again. I ended up with a Pass Labs Xs Pre amp and will either wait for the Xs phono or track down another solid state phono. No more tubes for me. For the record, when I wasn't having problems with the Ref 10 combo, they were fantastic. I use a Goldfinger Statement so output isn't a problem.

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IMHO, quality tube equipment usually represent very good value for money - you have to spend a lot more in solid state to get equivalent sound quality, specially considering the whole system - preamplifier plus power amplifier. I have been lucky with ARC and VTL equipment - in tens of years the only incidents I had were solved just replacing tubes and fuses. However forum statistics on equipment reliability are very low, and are usually dominated by a few cases of unhappily people - IMHO a Bermuda triangle type story.

The ARC REF2 phono, combining FETs at the input and tubes at the voltage gain and buffers solves the old problem of needing tubes selected for very low noise at the input and the need for transformers with low output MCs.

One less rosy point associated to SS equipment it the typical need of more expensive signal and power cables. In my experience, high-end SS is much more sensitive to cable quality than equivalent tube equipment.

I will say having had nearly all tubes once...14 in 3 components, DAC, Pre, amp...I now run 6 tubes, DAC and Pre (which a hybrid SS/Tube I think). If I ever gave up my CJ GAT, unless it were for a new flagship CJ, my thoughts turn to trying the Koda K10 or K15...both SS. If I ever gave up my Zanden, I think I would be tempted to look at Trinity, Light Harmonic Dual...both SS.