Up until March of this year my setup was a Rotel A12 integrated amp being used as a pre-amp, Rotel RB-1582 amp, Rotel CD14, Rega P3 with an exact cart, Rega PSU power supply, Project DS2 phono.....a Cambridge Audio DAC, Rega headphone amp and a Wiim Pro which are irrelevant to this issue.

Everything was just great until before Xmas when I noticed (what I thought at the time) a demise in sound quality, when you notice an issue it plays on your mind evey time you play something...anyway, the long and short of it is my local dealer tested the Rega P3 and the cantilever arm had collapsed on the Exact, not my doing, but it happened and Rega have it for inspection at the moment. I had a demo of the Ortofon Bronze and was sold, got home, set everything up and it sounded awful!!

At this stage I was about to "throw in the towel" but just as a process of elimination connected directly to the A12 phono input and "Wow" it came alive! So why is that? the connections are all correct, the phono stage worked fantastic with the Exact cart, but not the Ortofon bronze.

So this is where I am, I need a phono stage that will work well with the Ortofon, but I'm not willing to just take a chance!

Your advice, recommendations will be really appreciated and many thanks in advance.

Tried all the load settings for MM and MC on the phono stage, all sound bad!

Bertybasset wrote: Many thanks for your reply, and yes I'm interested in testing a Graham Slee phono stage, that's why I'm here....however I really would like some advice why this has happened? From my understanding phono stages don't generally develop faults, this is like night and day!!! Why would this happen? Is it a compatability issue? It's frustrating when you can't work out the issue!

Welcome.

Phono stages can develop problems, especially if they are complicated boxes with too many switches and delicate electronic parts. There is a reason why GS phono stages generally keep things more simplified. I've heard of several instances of parts failing inside a PJ phono over the years. GS phonos - not really.

It is also possible that your new cartridge is defective or you have something hooked up wrong. The correct settings for a Ortofon 2M would be 47K, around 40dB or so of gain, and 200pf or so of total capacitance (including cabling). Using LOMC settings is a terrible idea with that cart as it will just distort that way. The very low resistance loads suitable for LOMC also don't work well with high output carts like the Ortofon 2M series.

Another thing to consider is that the frequency response curves for a 2M vs. an Exact will be quite different even when each cart is set up properly with the right phono stage and settings.

Thank you for your help.