Stereomour Question

[kellymp]

I'm a newbie to Bottlehead products, but I'm thinking of taking advantage of the Black Friday offer to set up a rig for my record player.

Thorens Turntable > Reduction > Stereomour > Two Canton speakers

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but the 3.5w per channel advertised on the Stereomour doesn't sound like a lot.  Does anyone else have a similar setup?  If so how is the volume?

[Paul Joppa]

That depends mostly on the efficiency or sensitivity rating of the speaker, with some effect of room size, preferred music, etc.

[fullheadofnothing]

Has anything changed since the last time you asked?

[Natural Sound]

Which Canton model do you have? The specs of the few I looked at show an SPL of only 87 or so. That might be fine in a near field situation but in a large room room it could be challenging to get enough power from a Stereomour.

[kellymp]

Only thing that changed was the size of the room. Moved about 9 months ago and as such  this project got shelved for a bit. Room is 14x14 and speakers are Canton CT800s. Think that is enough gain or would I have to add an additional preamp?

Thanks

[Sugar Man]

I have a Stereomour II and Rega RP6, originally with the Sumiko BPS Evo III HOMC (2.5mv) and Blumenstein Orcas and Subs.  When I added the Seduction, I just didn't have enough gain.  Always wanted more clicks on the volume.  Switched to the Eros and the extra gain was just enough - plus the sound quality goes from really good to really gooder.  Switched cartridge to an AudioNote iQ3 (5mV?) and even better oomph.

If you can afford the Eros, you'll be happier.  Otherwise, you'll always be looking for more volume.  My two cents.  What cartridge are you running on your Thorens?

On a slightly different tack, has the Bottlehead team ever thought about a LOMC phono preamp and/or SUT kit?

Happy Thanksgiving!

[Doc B.]

I have a LOMC preamp. It sounds incredibly good but has just a bit of noise floor that we spent weeks trying to eliminate without success. It's also bigger than a Kaiju chassis, uses a couple of power transformers and eight 6C45pis to get the 1/f noise down. Not very practical as a kit.

Josh has been asking me to do a SUT for years. I'm not sure exactly how we would approach that since there are a lot of people selling SUTs these days. We would probably have to design our own transformer to make it unique. I am working on a ribbon mic design right now with the idea that we might make a kit. A ribbon mic uses a similar style of SUT, so that might help propel a phono SUT project.

[kellymp]

I have a Stereomour II and Rega RP6, originally with the Sumiko BPS Evo III HOMC (2.5mv) and Blumenstein Orcas and Subs.  When I added the Seduction, I just didn't have enough gain.  Always wanted more clicks on the volume.  Switched to the Eros and the extra gain was just enough - plus the sound quality goes from really good to really gooder.  Switched cartridge to an AudioNote iQ3 (5mV?) and even better oomph.

If you can afford the Eros, you'll be happier.  Otherwise, you'll always be looking for more volume.  My two cents.  What cartridge are you running on your Thorens?

On a slightly different tack, has the Bottlehead team ever thought about a LOMC phono preamp and/or SUT kit?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanks for the recommendation.  You're happy with the Eros > Stereomour combo?
I'm using a Signet TK3Ea cartridge which I can't find a lot of info on, but it looks to be about 4.2mv output.

[Paul Birkeland]

Your speakers are 93dB sensitive at 4 Ohms (not sure if it's at 1W or 2.83V).  Either way, that's considerably more efficient than the large numbers of our customers who pair Stereomours with Blumenstein Orcas.

-PB

[Sugar Man]

Thanks for the recommendation.  You're happy with the Eros > Stereomour combo?
I'm using a Signet TK3Ea cartridge which I can't find a lot of info on, but it looks to be about 4.2mv output.

Yes, very happy.  The Seduction and Eros have a similar sound, but the Eros is more resolved/detailed.  Once you hear that, its hard to go back.  Well worth the price differential, which is relatively small, IMHO.  I'd definitely start with the Stereomour II and save for the Eros. I also hooked up a <$100 Airport Express to the SII and now wirelessly stream Spotify which sounds perty darn good.