Stages of the phono

rega aria .....less money,heartache wires

I bought a superline at the end of it’s first product year when I had a 282 powered by half a flatcap2x and feeding a Rega Maia. I’d gone to buy a Hicap but the superline went on exdemo sale while I was at the shop so I bought that instead, it was all over the Michell Iso with upgraded power supply it replaced even with secondhand flatcap power. On my next trip to buy a Hicap I snagged a year old Aro for half price, the third attempt actually produced a Hicap, over a year after my first attempt.  There then followed a series of upgrade over the period of several years at a little over one a year. A 250-2, a CDX2, Fraim lite, a suspension upgrade for the TT, 555ps for the CDX2 before I bought a supercap and that went on the 282 and stayed there until a change in circumstances meant I could afford a 552, then the supercap went on the superline. I found AUX2 a very satisfying way of powering the superline and when I’d freed up the hicap I tried it on the superline but put it in its box prefering AUX2. Maybe if I’d used the supercap on the superline instead of the 282 I might have stayed there, it’s the only ps that gives you better swing than AUX2 and then only via it’s Burndy. I was never going to buy two of the blighters so if the money for a 552 hadn’t turned up I’d still be using it on AUX2 and happy with it.

Cyclo, if it were me I would get a Radikal now rather than a new phono stage. Then a Kore. Later down the road a pre loved Urika 1 could then come into play powered by said Radikal. Linn hierarchy and all that.

That is what I did anyway.

Stu

I bought a second hand Superline with a new board.   I got it with the Supercap DR.   It has been the best investment I have made into my audio set up.   Its output optimizes the Lyra SL cartridges, and I bought a KleosSL with confidence.   Together, this setup draws more music out of my old records and the improvement in sound is a great return on my investment.   I may never feel the need to upgrade my turntable setup again.  That is a nice feeling to be at the last stop in analog, with digital requiring upgrades at every turn.   I have never heard the Superline with a lower power supply, but I would not hesitate to plug it into the back of the 552 or to upgrade it with the HiCap and beyond.   Get the Superline, at least to try, and upgrade the PS as you can.   You won't be sorry.

Trichord Dino with the NCPSU is an excellent and very versatile phono stage for a lot less money.

Regarding the SuperLine, it all depends on how prone to “upgraditis” you are. When I auditioned the SuperLine against my Linto, it was clearly better, even powered from the AUX output. That alone ought to have settled it. With the SuperLine in my system, I felt that I no longer needed to think of the phono stage as any kind of bottleneck.

Conventional wisdom around here is that, with the 282, the HiCap is better than the AUX socket, and the SuperCap is better again, which is what you’d expect. However, I found that the HiCap improved the hi-fi aspects of the sound – bass, imaging, etc. – at the expense of naturalness and flow. Only when I added a SuperCap did I get an unqualified step forward.

But having done that, I needed to put my one SuperCap on the SuperLine, and the HiCap on the 282. This left me thinking that the 282 was now the bottleneck, and so I eventually got a SuperCap for the 282. My system sounds good, but I still suspect that even the 282/SuperCap is not doing the phono stage justice … and so it goes on.

There’s something to be said for the Radikal/Urika approach, but if you prefer the Naim house sound to Linn’s – and I do – you might find the Urika a step down from the SuperLine, despite its superiority in certain ways. In that scenario, going for the Urika might solve your problem now, but cause the upgraditis bug to return in a year or two. Only you can make that decision.

Colm

With an LP12 I’d go for a Radikal / Urika. It’s a great combination.

Otherwise start with a SuperLine and start upgrading. I used to run my RP10 with a Rega Aria. Then in went a SuperLIne, powered initially from the AUX of my 282. A SuperCapDR was added in due course, taking the performance to another level altogether.

Thanks for all for the replies. I will probably go with a used Superline and power it from the 282.  Having it Supercapped  or going Radikal /Urika might be an option if I didn't buy any records for a long time but not a very good one.

Thanks again. 

Mike

A good choice in my opinion.

I think you will be positively surprised how much SuperLine improves on other phonostages.