Tavish Design MC series Owner's Manual - 1 I
2
1 I
NTRODUCTION AND
Q
UICK
S
TART
Thanks for buying the Classic Phono Stage!
Tavish Design’s Classic Vacuum-Tube Phono Stage is a passively-equalized, two-gain-stage design whose
basic circuit topology has remained popular for more than 55 years. The reason for its endurance is
simple: with appropriate updates, it is very difficult to beat without going to elaborate multi-tube
circuits. In fact, this simple phono stage outperforms many (if not most) high-end products.
Vacuum tubes present some unique safety considerations, so please take time to look over the safety
considerations in Section 2.
Feel free to contact Tavish Design if you have any questions (
info@tavishdesign.com
).
Quick Start
1. Install the tubes. See Section 3 if you haven’t done this before.
2. Connect your turntable to either the Moving Magnet (MM) or Moving Coil (MC) input and set the
rear panel toggle switch to the corresponding position. Default settings for the Classic Phono Stage
should work well with most MM and low-output MC cartridges. You can customize cartridge
loading, see Section 3.
If you have a high-output MC cartridge, the MM input is probably the best one to use, but it
depends on your cartridge output level, and you may want to adjust the internal cartridge loading
and gain settings. See Section 3.
Be sure to connect the ground post on the back of the phono stage to the ground post on your
turntable.
3. The phono stage takes 30 – 40 seconds to warm up, as indicated by the blue “Ready” LED on the
front panel. The phono stage will not pass signal until then.
Turn down your volume control the first time you play an LP, until you are familiar with the
appropriate volume setting.
12AU7
12AX7
5751
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