Phono Preamplifiers

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Phono Preamplifiers
Creek Wyndsor Phono - £1,500
Ed Selley  |  Jan 09, 2012  |  0 comments
Royal performance Creek has upped the ante with its first no compromise phono stage, Jason Kennedy puts the new Wyndsor through its paces Creek introduced the Wyndsor name with its fi rst turntable in 2010 (HFC 302) and now it has a phono stage to match. This is a two-box design with exemplary casework and a front panel interface that allows you to confi gure preset parameters for several different cartridges and have it remember each by name. This will be a boon to anyone who regularly changes cartridge and needs to set specifi c gain, impedance and capacitance for each. Another feature that we are beginning to see on a growing number of phono stages is balanced inputs, albeit not in conventional form.
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Phono Preamplifiers
Primare R32 - £850
Ed Selley  |  May 16, 2011  |  0 comments
The final frontier Primare's beautifully built, full-width phono stage is the perfect partner for serious vinyl systems says analogue addict Jason Kennedy Primare’s new R32 has got to be the biggest phono stage on the market for under a grand, In fact, you could fit a dozen Dynavector P75 MkII stages inside it! Size is not usually considered a bonus in such devices but it has two benefits: you get a component that matches the rest on your rack and it’s extremely well built. You also get plenty of space between the power supply and the internal circuitry. When you are amplifying the pitiful output of a moving coil cartridge you need the quietest environment you can get and this is one way of achieving it. Back in black In 2009, we reviewed Primare’s R20 phono stage (HFC 320), which was half the width of the R32 and nearly half the price, but had the unusual feature of variable gain for the MM input only.
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Phono Preamplifiers
Dynavector P-75 MkII - £595
Ed Selley  |  Apr 28, 2011  |  0 comments
Just for the record Can a humble cartridge-maker craft the perfect phono stage? Dynavector’s radical P-75 looks to invigorate Jason Kennedy’s LP collection In many respects you would expect companies that make cartridges to be the best placed to design a phono stage, but this is still quite a rare practice (van den Hul and Rega are notable exceptions). Dynavector is not just a cartridge maker of course, it has an electronics wing in New Zealand and used to make an amplifier with stereo- enhancing circuitry, there is also a discontinued head amplifier on its website. Its compact P-75 phono stage is now in its second generation and has something of a cult following, so we thought it time to investigate. Degrees of grain The P75 does a couple of things rather differently to most.
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Phono Preamplifiers
Linn Uphorik - £1,850
Ed Selley  |  Jul 02, 2010  |  0 comments
Bright and beautiful In this exclusive review Jimmy Hughes looks at Linn's new 'universal' phono stage and discovers a must-have tool for LP lovers It goes without saying that Linn’s Uphorik phono stage will have plenty of appeal to serious vinyl enthusiasts: those lucky individuals with a top class turntable, arm and cartridge, who are intent on making their precious collection of LPs sound as good as is humanly possible. Yet, the Uphorik will also appeal to record fans in general, proving once and for all that the vinyl LP is still very much alive and kicking in 2010. Which is pretty impressive news, given that its rival, the compact disc is fast approaching its 30th birthday. More importantly, vinyl is becoming increasingly popular among younger hi-fi enthusiasts born long after its heyday - see our feature on p84.
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