Denon DL-S1

[Paul Birkeland]

HOMC carts with the Eros will work, but there will be a fair amount of tube rush since the signal coming into the Eros is 8dB or so lower than optimal.

The Sowter 1090 works to bump up those middle of the road HOMC carts to a more appropriate output, but then you're stuck with 2-3mV HOMC options.

[sl-15]

Paul, thanks for posting the link to the calculator. So much info on this website, what a great find.

[joralieu]

It just dawned on me that I could run the DL-S1 out of the Channel D straight into the Eros 2. The Channel D Lino I have is flat output (no riaa) so I think that might work. It is balanced XLR though so not sure how to connect it to the Eros 2. What do you think?

[Paul Birkeland]

The Lino has about as much gain as an RIAA preamp, so if you feed that into the Eros you will likely overdrive the Eros.

[joralieu]

Finished my Eros 2 running it with my Denon Dl-S1 thru my Channel D Lino set to the lowest gain setting (43db). Doesn't sound to bad. The channel D has options to set impedance from lowest 60 ohms highest 2000 ohms some levels in between. What would be an appropriate setting? The board in the Lino also has sockets for adding capacitors to change impedance.
Thank you
Joe

[Paul Joppa]

Assuming it's the transresistance input preamp, I can't tell what Channel D means by gain or impedance. You would do best by asking Channel D and/or Denon.

I do see that Denon recommends 100 ohms or more for the load on the cartridge, but of course the transresistance input impedance  is nearly zero since it's a current-input circuit.

Hmmm ... I wonder if we could make a tubed transresistance MC stepup?  :^)

[joralieu]

I talked to Channel D they didn't recommend using it this way. I have a AT WM95E going try, probably sound better then this goofy setup
Thanks
Joe
 

[joralieu]

So, how would a Denon DL-S1 cartridge with a Denon AU-S1 transformer work in front of the EROS 2? Supposedly that transformer was the mate for the DL-S1.

[Paul Birkeland]

The DL-S1 is 0.15mV with a recommended loading impedance of over 100 ohms. The AU-S1 is a 1:13 step-up, so you're going to get that to just under 2mV.  This is on the low side for the Eros, but I would expect surface noise on the LP to be more present than the noise floor of the SUT/Eros.

A 1:20 SUT (Sowter 9990) with the DL-S1 will still present more than 100 ohms of loading impedance to the cartridge but get the level up a bit more. 

[CrowDaddy]

Hmmm ... I wonder if we could make a tubed transresistance MC stepup?  :^)

Paul — transimpedance phonostages are all the rage these days, so there should be customer interest.  I for one would be interested in such a front end for my Eros2.

As for carts to use with the stock Eros2, the Ortofon 2M Black LVB250 is superb.  A famous nearby tonearm designer agrees ….

[hmbscott]

MM carts with the Eros 2 ... I'm quite happy with my Ortofon 2M Bronze.

[joralieu]

Bobs devices says a Sky 30 will work fine with the DL-S1 and the eros. What do you think?

[Paul Birkeland]

The DL-S1 has around 0.15mV of output, which is super low, so I'd want something like a  set of1:30 step-ups.  The recommended loading impedance is 100 Ohms or greater, so you could use a 1:30 step-up into the Eros and load each secondary with a 100K resistor and it would look OK on paper but it's the performance of a 1:30 transformer with that loading is unlikely to be optimal.  The actual impedance of the DL-S1 is also really high at 40 ohms, so that recommended loading impedance of 100 ohms seems very low.

The Sowter 1590 is a 1:30 SUT that can be ordered with threaded grommets that will mount right into an Eros 2, so instead of spending $1400 on external Cinemags, you could spend $350 to integrate them into the phono preamp. 

If you were planning on spending $1400, you could get a different cartridge and a more typical set of step-ups to not have to deal with these issues.

This was covered about a year ago here: https://forum.bottlehead.com/index.php?topic=14306.msg130351#msg130351

The circumstances have not changed since then.

[Toys4Boys]

I realize this is late to the party, but here is a link http://www.rothwellaudioproducts.co.uk/html/mc_step-up_transformers_explai.html to what appears to be an excellent explanation of transformer and cartridge matching. I don't understand a fair amount but the basics are easy enough to wrap one's head around.