Features: Phono Preamplifiers

The full SOTA story deserves telling but this isn't the place or time but a Reader's Digest condensed version begins with the late Dave Fletcher, an experimental physicist who left the U.C. Berkeley Particle Lab to be his own boss and in 1972 co-founded Sumiko. During vinyl’s heyday, Sumiko was a leading North American importer of phono cartridges and tonearms, introducing brands to America that included Grace, Supex, Fidelity Research, Koetsu, Kiseki,... Read More

Cut Music First’s head honcho Jonathan Billington in half and you will find tightly wound copper wire, this man lives, breathes and hand turns transformers more as a way of life than in an effort to make a living. He never stood a chance to be honest, his parents’ company Stevens & Billington made transformers and when Jonathan took over he carried on the family tradition. It wasn’t until some crazy young East German hi-fi nut asked him to make some transformers... Read More

Now in its 101st year, Luxman is one audio company you needn't worry about not being around when you need service or parts—not that you're likely to need either. Luxman has always had a solid reputation for excellent build quality and high reliability. With its understated size (17.3" wide × 3.6" high × 16" deep) and business-like front panel, the recently introduced E-07 may appear to be a lightweight but it weighs in at a hefty 29 pounds... Read More

Rather than try to build some suspense and to keep you from just scrolling to the bottom of this review, I’ll just start by saying I love this PrimaLuna Evo100 V2 Phonostage and I’ll be sorry to pack it up and send it back. I was looking forward to trying this new version, as it included the ability to switch between 12AX7 and 6922 tubes in the MC gain section. Herman van den Dungen, PrimaLuna’s founder, told me that PrimaLuna’s designer, Jan de Groot, wanted to make... Read More

If you've ever longed for a "tube-like" sounding solid state phono stage in an ultra compact enclosure that could accommodate 2 arm/cartridges (one dedicated MM, 1 dedicated MM via single-ended RCA connections) with both RCA and balanced outputs, a full compliment of loading options and capable of accommodation an MC cartridge with as low as 0.04mV output (Audio Note owners rejoice!), priced at under $6,000 (as of last tariff review) then your and my... Read More

This review has taken longer to write than EveAnna Manley took to finish the design and put Oasis into production and make it available to buy. That's a long time but she had an excuse. I have none. Well, there were reasons of scheduling, "stuff" happening, prior commitments etc. Her excuse was designing a new from the ground up phono preamp to replace the popular Chinook, though it uses basic circuitry found in all Manley phono preamps. When I visited... Read More

Michell is a name that’s primarily associated with turntables, John Michell was the engineer who made turntables for Transcriptors in the early days and started building his own models in 1976. Michell remains one of the longest running independent turntable companies but it has plenty of experience with electronics. The first example was the Michell Iso distinguished by a black acrylic case and a distinctly fast and engaging sound, that phono preamp was designed for... Read More

The initial interest draw here is a supplied Lenovo Tab M8 touchscreen remote, with Belleson’s visually attractive program installed, that lets you set all functionality from where you sit and listen.A powerful, unique convenience feature for sure, but it wouldn’t be sufficient to justify a review if that’s all that was tacked onto a ho-hum solid state phono preamplifier. So obviously there’s more to this American-made, fully balanced $8500 phono preamp that's... Read More

Switzerland may be the land of neutrality, but its audio gear has been steadily invading my audio system. It started with a CH Precision P1 phono stage. Next came a DartZeel preamplifier and monoblock amplifiers. Now a new entrant has arrived—the dual mono HSE 7 Masterline phonostage with separate power supply.Fans of Michael Fremer, the head honcho of this website, may recall that he reviewed this phonostage in The Absolute Sound, the very magazine where he commenced... Read More

On October 28th Rega company owner and sole director Roy Gandy gave away all of his shares to a trust established to protect the company in the future. He created an EOT (employee owned trust) and effectively gifted Rega to its workers. The reason given is that this move will “protect our culture and decades of hard work. Becoming an EOT prevents the company being sold and potential buyouts (by dreaded investors) whilst providing all staff with job security going... Read More

Hard to believe, but McIntosh's recently introduced MP100 is the storied company's first stand-alone phono preamplifier. Though at $2000 it's not stratospherically priced, it delivers both an impressive features set and the suave sonic goods, feel and build quality you'd expect from McIntosh. and of course, you could even say it glows (green).This is an accidental review, though shame on me for not asking for one to review sooner. It was on my... Read More

High-end audio has a rich history of husband-and-wife teams. In the case of Zesto Audio, head honcho George Counnas designs the circuitry, and his wife Carolyn creates the line's distinctive, unmistakably artsy, curvaceous looks. She also does Zesto's marketing.George’s back story includes being part of a research and development team designing airborne navigational systems for the Royal Air Force and later as a recording engineer, musician, and producer.... Read More

One of my favorite demo LPs—heck, one of my favorite LPs, period—is the 45rpm reissue by the late, lamented Classic Records of the Mussorgsky/Ravel Pictures At An Exhibition, which was originally released by RCA on its fabled "Shaded Dog" Living Stereo label. It was recorded in 1958 at Orchestra Hall and features the Chicago Symphony led by the legendary conductor Fritz Reiner. A young Adolph Herseth, probably the best orchestral trumpeter of the past... Read More

Jerome Sabbagh's newest album Heart arrived as I was packing for Munich so I couldn't play it before leaving. Upon returning, once my ears had unclogged from the plane flight, I got right to it, playing it on the MoFi Electronics Masterdeck turntable, a review of which is coming right up. First play I found the James Farber engineered at The Power Station live to 2-track analog tape recording wonderfully transparent, timbrally rich, and overall, sonically... Read More

Westminster Lab is relatively new to the hifi scene, but since introducing their Rei power amps and Quest preamplifier, the company has rapidly gained a reputation for excellence. There is a lot of available online information and interviews with Westminster Lab founder and CEO Angus Leung so I won’t rehash too much of it here. Mr. Lueng started as a digital-only listener and designer until a meeting with DS Audio founder and bossman Tetsuaki Aoyagi resulted in Mr.... Read More

Schiit's Skoll phono preamp is a wonder of miniaturization and efficient product design, that much is certain. The photo makes it appear larger than it really is, which is approximately 9"x6"x1.5". Now, that's compact and perhaps not unusual in itself but consider that it features both single-ended and balanced XLR inputs and output connectors. There's even a multi-pin jack for the special wall-wart that provided the chassis both 24VAC... Read More

Many Grails ago, in 2009, van den Hul introduced its original "The Grail" transimpedance-based MC/MM phono preamplifier. I reviewed it in 2018 when it cost $7950. Yes, it’s pretentious to name anything, but especially an audio product, “The Grail” but at least it wasn’t called “The Holy Grail” and it wasn’t packed in a cup and didn’t promise mystical healing powers. But it surely did deliver the promised outstanding sonic performance and it's still in... Read More

AVM’s Ovation PH 8.3 vacuum tube-based phono preamplifier is among the most versatile, useful, and well-conceived phono preamps I’ve yet encountered. How’s that for an opening paragraph? As with all models in the Ovation 8 series, the PH 8.3’s output stage uses a matched pair of AVM’s 803T tube, which is a 12AX7, modified per AVM’s specifications, that helps produce, according to the company, “an unmistakably charming tube sound”. BTW "AVM" stands for Audio... Read More