Conrad-Johnson PV8 Tube Preamp with Phono

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Unfamiliar with Conrad-Johnson?  Here's some background from their official website:

"the conrad-johnson story
In the mid-1970s, two economists—friends and serious audiophiles—Dr. William Conrad and Dr. Lewis Johnson—were highly dissatisfied with the commercially available equipment of the time and were also perplexed and challenged by the readily apparent sonic differences among components in their own systems. What made these two classic tube systems sound so different? Could the virtues of each be somehow combined? Not content to merely speculate on such issues, Conrad and Johnson decided to systematically investigate by developing and refining a vacuum-tube preamplifier.

The resulting conrad-johnson preamplifier was immediately recognized as a state of the art contender and catapulted Conrad and Johnson into the audio industry."

This all-tube beautifully understated preamplifier has simple looking yet fully functional controls laid out across its front panel.

Large & luxurious solid control knobs allow you to select your source, choose your output mode (Stereo, Reverse, Mono, Left, Right), adjust overall balance, and of course adjust the volume.  Care was obviously taken in the placement of these controls as Volume is all the way to the right, exactly where your hand first wants to land to adjust the output to your amplifier(s).

A note about the Phono section from the manual:

Phono input:  This input provides the amplification and equalization required by moving magnet and high output moving coil cartridges. The input impedance is the industry standard 47,000 ohms shunted by approximately 100 picofarads capacitance. This is well suited to nearly all moving magnet and many high- output moving coil cartridges.

Specifics on the PV8 direct from Conrad-Johnson:

"The PV8 superceded the PV5.

It was the first all-tube zero-feedback design from conrad-johnson.

The basic audio circuit of the PV8 is modular, built from individual gain blocks consisting of a triode amplifier direct coupled to a cathode follower.

The phono stage consists of a gain block, a passive RIAA network, and a second gain block. The line stage consists of a single gain block. These stages use polypropylene capacitors bypassed by a polystyrene capacitor for the output stages.

Even the main dc power supplies used polypropylene capacitors – there are no electrolytic capacitors in the audio circuits or their related power supplies. Paralleled triode sections at the phono input yield nearly 3 dB improvements in the signal to noise ratio over a single input tube (as used in the earlier PV5)."

Replacement Tube Set RT8
V1 & V2: 12AX7 | V3 & V5: 5751 | V4 & V6: 5965

Features:
Inputs/Outputs
Phono
Tuner
Auxiliary
Monitor and recording facilities for two tape decks with dubbing from Tape 1 to Tape 2
One main output
Auto-muting to suppress warm up transients

Controls:
Selector
Tape 1/Tape 2
Source/Monitor
Mode (Reverse, Stereo, Mono)
Balance
Volume
Power

Specifications:
Gain: Stage 47 dB (phono overload 200 mV at 1kHz)
Line Stage 31 dB
Distortion: less than .1% THD or IMD
Response: bandpass 2Hz to more than 100kHz
RIAA Equalization: +/- .25 dB (20 to 20 kHz)
S/N Ratio: Phono Stage 76 dB below 10 mv input
Line Stage 85 dB below 2.5 volt output
Phase: Line Stage phase inverting, Phono Stage phase correct

Mechanical:
19″ X 3″ x 12″

Click here for a PDF copy of the Owner's Manual

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