Schiit Stjarna - Tube Phono Pream

Just announced:

https://www.schiit.com/products/stjarna

 

I’d been waiting for the official announcement/release for quite a while, and I have to say I was surprised by the price. Maybe I just wasn’t paying enough attention. At $1,699, it seems aimed at a more high-level market than I was expecting. For those with a mid-fi vinyl setup like mine (Project Debut I.2, Ortofon 2M Bronze, Ray Samuels F117 Nighthawk), it would make much more sense to put that money toward a new turntable or cartridge.

 

Perhaps, perhaps not. There is a special synergy and magic that in my experience one only gets with a tube phono preamp married to a quality low-output moving coil cartridge.

First loved that sound back in my ARC/Oracle/Koetsu days….

In any event, Schiit offers the Skoll (at $399) which does an outstanding job; I’ve previously posted here that it is the sonic equal (maybe better?) of my classic Classe’ DR6R (which is dead, and thus moot, still awaiting my turn in the repair queue to come up). I’ve been loving mine for over a year now. But, I just ordered Stjarna and it will be very instructive to race them.

I’ll try and do a thorough review when I get it and get going (“ships in 5-7 days”)

For a high gain, tube only phono preamp, that price is amazingly reasonable - take a look at what’s out there.

It is somewhat analogous to the “$100 DAC’s, $400 DAC’s, $1600 DAC’s, $3K DAC’s, and megabuck ones…

 

I'm also surprised at the price, because I feel like the market is saturated with $1.5-$2k tube phono preamps and pricing themselves in this bracket puts Schiit up against a ton of competition far more established in the vinyl space.

Edit: I didn't realize the implementation is unique for the price range, that could change the value proposition significantly. I'll take a turn if we end up getting a loaner.

 

Yeah this thing is crazy and unique. Just try searching around for a phono preamp that works with LOMC with no JFETs and no SUTs required. I had to plow through the HF thread but found Jason’s chapter about Stjarna here
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sch...able-start-up.701900/page-12177#post-18583334
This is impressively nuts that @schiit even tried something like this!

 

Will be curious to hear your comparison to the Allnic. I also have one of their stages.

I'm a big fan of SUTs, but maybe all tube gain would be a cool different flavor.

 

Priced me out of getting one, but I still think it's sweet!!!

 

I have an all tube phono preamp (Dynaco PAS4) which I refurbished. I use it only for the phono output (one can bypass the preamp stage and output only the phono stage). It doesn’t have all the Stjarna options (only 47k 10p). I wonder how come on paper its 40dB gain looks better than Stjarna in terms of THD. I ordered a Stjarna from @schiit and asking to learn more. Attaching the circuit and specs from the manual.

 

I’d suggest reading Jason’s post on Stjarna over on HF… in short 40dB gain is always going to be less “noisy” than 60dB…. It’s just as true on my Skoll as its gain range is switched… My (now in a queue to be repaired - maybe) Classe’ DR6R had variable gain as well (I’d put in the resistors to lock in 72dB). I don’t remember any deltas when I changed the gain in terms of bearable noise (likely because not only was it pretty damn small, but also because the process of changing the gain: turn off, open up, de-solder a pair of precision resistors, solder in new ones, close back up, power up was so onerous that any sonic “memories” would be very suspect).

TL;’DR: the more the gain, the more the noise, *especially* with Tubes, but it holds for JFets, OpAmps, and discrete circuits as well, albeit to a lesser extent.

I’m often struck that the identical approach to increasing S/N ratio for preamps (parallel a bunch of identical JFets’ or tubes, or - shudder - OpAmps - to then “average out” the noise… is identical to the process I use for increasing S/N ratio in astrophotography: take multiple exposures and then stack/average them…. Of course taking that parallelization process is expensive AF, and even more heroic to do with Tubes.

Given Stjarna’s gain, I’m quite certain that it’s “noise”, albeit higher than Skoll, is still going to be lost under the music itself.

 

I have a Fosgate Signature phono preamp that also only uses tubes for the gain stages, but they are long gone so only available used. Love the thing. Still might try one of these if still available toward the end of the year but the price pushes it out of impulse buy territory…specifically for someone who already has too many phono stages..

 

thanks! Yeah I had read it and mostly was looking at the specs @40 and wondering about the difference for the specific gain level .

 

So, got Stjarna yesterday (SN xxx 109). I’ve got 16 hours on the tubes NOW.

Will do a full review in near future. In short: 1) it is far noisier than Skoll (duh), 2) the noise is well below the signal when listening to music…. Short answer. New king in town. Runs quite warm. I’m running at full, 60dB gain.

 

Looking forward to your review. Can’t pick one up now. It can live vicariously through others.

 

So a mini review.
1. After several weeks now and a TON of my reference LPs, I’ve decided to sell the Skoll (see For Sale, just posted)

2. Yes, it has higher total “noise” than Skoll (not even close), but in my system, it is completely and utterly inaudible at my listening seat at any volume level. Run at 60dB gain into Kara high gain (12dB) and thence to my amp and speakers, I can play at 90dB peaks with Kara volume at 14:30… if I have no active source, and just crank Kara’s gain to the max, I do hear hum and noise from about 6 feet away, but this is at levels that would destroy my ears (and possible speakers) if actual real signal were present.

3. The tubes do seem to be slightly sensitive to gHz radio waves; some have heard a very low level (below random noise and hum that is) fluttering in the right channel. I can barely hear that - again under max possible gain scenarios). They’re shipping me a FB extended to move it further away from the tubes and take advantage of the 1/distance squared benefits.

4. It is giving me all of the tube “magic” I wanted in terms of soundstage/spacing and imaging. Tonality/Timber are exquisite, lower level listening levels are a bit more dynamic than Skoll…. I love the flexibility of additional loading options; I’m currently racing/debating back and forth between 350 Ohms and 47k (the Hana docs specify 400, so…). It clearly needs load higher than 250 though… I’ve yet to discern any repeatable differences across the capacitance, and continue to gravitate back to 250pF…

5. It reminds me very much of the ARC tube preamps ability to “light up” the soundstage; instruments have more listening “body” and more discernible “space” around them.

6. My final test was Leo Kottke - the “Armadillo” album (I have an OG pressing on Takoma, and have heard him live many times over the years; it’s the ultimate standard for me in that regard). Stjarna for the win.

And, for what it is worth, I’ve noticed I can set an additional 3dB or so of volume on records played through it versus before in terms of wifey yelling: “Hey, too Loud, buster!”…

Eventually I’ll have to pull together all my notes to write something more comprehensive, but, for now, I can highly recommend it, in particular for anyone running a lower output MC that needs 60dB of gain.

I’m going to use the Skoll sell proceeds to fund my Kara FB upgrade; now that I’ve got FB, I’m hooked