New Phono Amp

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Nick
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#16 Re: New Phono Amp

Post by Nick »

gninnam wrote: Thu Apr 26, 2018 10:27 pm Thanks for the info. If the phono amp with a wall wart sounds good and with the £xxx PSU sounded even better, then you have the upgrade path like a lot of HiFi kit does ;)
And on one level I will have failed to make it work independently of the power supply :-)
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gninnam
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#17 Re: New Phono Amp

Post by gninnam »

Nick wrote: Thu Apr 26, 2018 11:36 pm
gninnam wrote: Thu Apr 26, 2018 10:27 pm Thanks for the info. If the phono amp with a wall wart sounds good and with the £xxx PSU sounded even better, then you have the upgrade path like a lot of HiFi kit does ;)
And on one level I will have failed to make it work independently of the power supply :-)
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Ant
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#18 Re: New Phono Amp

Post by Ant »

Ok so ive had nicks Ph1 here most of the week.
Time for some (semi) coherent thoughts on it.

At 200 quid its bang in the 'first upgrade' price bracket, the target customer I would think is either is upgrading from something like the project phono box, nad pp3 or something of that ilk, buying a decent Tt rig in the first place, or resurrecting an old deck and replacing an old phono stage.

It is also modular, add the head amp and you have an mc system. There is an upgrade path for Mr Jones when he decides to buy a different cart. Or dave sells him a hana.

So far so good. Its in the right price bracket and has clear range progression.

Build quality is very good, and having been inside it (at nicks behest by the way, I wasn't nebbing)...., it is put together as you would expect from nick, i.e....properly. Layout, components and board are all quality.

So in terms of the build and finish, spot on. My only issue is that the inputs are on the front and the outputs on the back, so it looks abit messy with the cables if its somewhere where you can see it. But its designed to be put out of the way and left on all the time, and plenty of the competition have similar layouts. And looking at the board itsself there is good reason for it to be like it is. only the pedants like me will care, so its probably a none issue for 99.9% of people

Noise? There isnt any. Literally. Vanishingly quiet.

So far so good.

Onto Sq.

You lot probably know what I have, for those that don't, or couldn't care less, this is what I've run it with.
Tt - lenco conversion/at1100/at150sa, and jvc ql-y5f at440mlb
So imo very good moving maget carts, not a linn k18, at95 or a horrid 1042.

You lot also know what a bore and a pedant I am when it comes to vinyl on general.

Amplification is via a Dual mono Stepped attenuator passive pre, dual mono pass f5 power amp, into metronome 'm' speakers

It takes about 10 hours to run in, and you will be able to tell when it has.

It sounds like nick designed it. It has alarmingly good performance at the bottom end, it is very tight and controlled. Bass texture is spot on, it's extended and controlled. No flab.

Mid is well judged, nice and tight, voices are done very well.

Top end is very good now, it took abit of running in for it to open up, but after about 12 hours settled down.

The imaging is very good, you an accurately locate an instrument in the sound stage and follow it with no problem. Separation between instruments is also very good, one doesn't sort of bleed into another as they sometimes seem do with other units ive heard.

Its quite airy, not squashed up like some other units ive heard.

Taken as a whole the sound is very even top to bottom, and is clean.

Compared to the other 2 phono stages I have here, the xlps and the benedict audio hothead it sets between the 2.

The xlps is hopelessly outclassed, sounding bleached, grey and thin, even with a better psu transformer three times the va of the original. Bear in mind that if you want an xlps, going on the bay you are looking at around 150, and a decent psu can cost a few quid, so in monetary terms I think it's a fair comparison.

Basically nicks is much better for not a great deal more money

It is much closer to the benedict audio phono stage than the xlps. The Ph1 I think is actually a gnats better at the bottom end.... Like I said, the bottom end is alarmingly good.

Its not quite as good at the top end, and on voices as the benedict which is abit more musical overall, abit cleaner, but it should be. it was twice the price....... and good luck finding a hothead.

Notice that nowhere have i said 'its good FOR THE PRICE', its just very good.

Simple as that.
If i didnt have the benedict, I'd want to keep it.
Infact, i do want to keep it to run the jvc through, but what I should do is make a little switch box so i can connect it to the hothead aswell as the lenco. And I'm in the bad books with SWMBO as it is, so It'd be more than my life is worth.....

If Nicks brief was to design an entry level phono stage, then he has failed miserably because there is nothing entry level about it. It sounds refined and very well judged

Id be happy to recommend it to anyone. I think you would need to spend a shit sight more to get something that is comprehensively better.

Bear in mind, I have no axe to grind, no ulterior motive, im not being given it by a manufacturer, i have no reason to praise it other than the fact that's very good.

I havent tried the mc head amp yet, I may do over the weekend

So thankyou to nick for sending it my way, and hopefully my feedback has been useful, Simon give me a shout about passing it on

Cheers ant

Edit: I have used it with almost all the genres of music in my collection, i went out of my way to listen to as many different things as I could to try and trip it up
Last edited by Ant on Fri May 04, 2018 8:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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gninnam
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#19 Re: New Phono Amp

Post by gninnam »

Thanks for the revue.
Sounds like Nick has done well at the price point.
Just replaced my phono stage so not in the market just yet, but will bear it in mind next year.
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