Phono Preamp Reviews

If I hear it, is it real?

If your ears see,

And your eyes hear,

Not a doubt you'll cherish—How naturally the rain drips

From the eyes!—Bujutsu Sosho

The more audio gear I review, the more fascinated I become by the fact that as I listen to recorded music, I can close my eyes and see musicians on the stage at Carnegie Hall, or djembe drummers in a desert by a tent, or a bass note penetrating the Milky Way. What a gift of consciousness. And what a great hobby it is that focuses my attentions in this manner.

Whenever I do turntable-setup seminars, I complain to the participants about the lack of cartridge-pin diameter and clip-opening standards. Anyone who does their own setup has experienced it: The connection is too tight or too loose. Forcing the clip onto the pin usually results in a broken-off clip that most end users don't have the soldering skills needed to repair; in the worst case, it can even result in damage to the cartridge when you try to remove the clip from the pin.

Sometime around 483 BCE, in Kushinagar, the capital of the Malla Republic in what today is the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, an aristocrat named Siddhārtha Gautama—known better to us as the Buddha, or the Awakened One—passed away. For 45 years, he had wandered the North Indian River Plain teaching a method of overcoming ignorance, craving, and the cycle of death and rebirth to a growing community of followers.

Years ago, at a San Francisco Audiophile Society gathering, I was lucky enough to spend time with the late, brilliant electrical engineer Roger Modjeski, whose Music Reference RM-200 Mk.II hybrid stereo tube amp is among my most prized hi-fi treasures. I asked him what he knew about transimpedance phono preamplifiers. He grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and drew a detailed transimpedance phono preamp circuit, quipping, "These have been around forever, but until recently no one has paid much attention to them."

In 2018, Micha Huber's HiFiction AG, manufacturer of Thales tonearms and turntables, assumed control of EMT Tontechnik, taking over EMT's cartridge business including development, production, repair, and international distribution—with the exception of the EMT broadcast cartridge line for the EU market, which is still distributed by EMT Studiotechnik out of the company's original Black Forest home in Mahlberg, Germany.

One privilege of being a Stereophile columnist is the opportunity to cover products from smaller, less well-known manufacturers, including those that don't have wide enough distribution to qualify for a full review. One such company is Victorville, California–based Paradox. I'd never heard of them until I received an email from Terence Robinson, the company's owner. The email included a description of a phono preamplifier that so intrigued me that I asked for a review sample.

One reason Stereophile publishes a FollowUp is when the original review leaves an issue unresolved or where further thoughts would be useful. Such was the case with the magazine's March 2022 issue, which had followup reviews on the iFi ZEN CAN headphone amplifier and ZEN DAC Signature V2 D/A processor ($599/pair). the Pro-Ject Phono Box RS2 phono preamplifier ($1999), and the Canton Reference 7K loudspeaker ($6995/pair).