Analog Corner

Other than being well built and high priced ($15,000, $22,000, $60,000), these three phono preamps have very little in common, in design or in sound. One has vacuum tubes, including a direct-heated 5U4G rectifier tube (the Phasemation). Two are solid-state (the PBN and Qualia). Two feature separate chassis for the left and right channels (the Qualia and Phasemation). All three have outboard power supplies. Two come from Japan (the Qualia and Phasemation), one is made in the US (PBN). All three are elegantly built, inside and out. Two are physically attractive, one is lab-grade butt ugly. One has a host of convenience features, including various equalization curves and three inputs (Phasemation). One offers no adjustability whatsoever (Qualia). One has two gain settings and multiple loading options (PBN). Two are designed to be used only with moving-coil cartridges, while the third (Phasemation) can also accommodate moving-magnets. One is fully balanced and dual- differential (PBN), two are not.

Phasemation EA-1000 phono preamplifier: $15,000
Although the Phasemation brand is not well known in America, the company has been around for many years and manufactures a full line, including tubed amplifiers, integrated amps, passive attenuators, step-up transformers, phono preamplifiers, and phono cartridges (footnote 1).

Phasemation's parent company, Kyodo Denshi Engineering Co., Ltd., produces precision measurement equipment for the IT industry. As I understand it, the man at the top has a passion for high-performance audio, and makes use of KDE's manufacturing expertise to realize his designs.

The three-box EA-1000 ($15,000) features identical cases for the left and right channels, each of which has three knobs on its front panel; the rear panels are mirror imaged. The chassis are made of copper-plated steel. The thick faceplates of brushed aluminum, with their satiny finish, shiny gold-plated knobs, and logo, give the EA-1000 the distinctly retro look of 1980s gear. I found both the look and feel of the EA-1000 attractive.

The leftmost knob selects between Mono and Stereo, but with a twist. Stereo selects the RIAA curve. One of three mono positions selects UK Decca's ffrr curve, a second selects the Columbia curve, and a third an "all-purpose" 78rpm curve that's set for 500Hz turnover and 50Hz (+20dB) low limit and rolls off at 6dB/octave above 10kHz.

I'm no expert on the playback of 78s, so I couldn't judge the effectiveness of that "all-purpose" curve, other than to say that it's almost certainly better than playing 78s with the RIAA curve. I appreciate that the designer makes the ffrr and Columbia curves available only in mono; contrary to the misinformation provided by some "authorities," those curves were never used in the production of stereo LPs.

The right-hand knob selects among the three inputs: two MC, one MM. The central knob offers High and Low MC impedance and gain settings. Choose High for loadings of 100 ohms and above with 59dB gain, and Low for 100 ohms or lower and 67dB gain. Such settings are always confusing. Does Low mean "low gain for a higher-output cartridge," or vice versa? Here, Low means higher gain for a lower-output cartridge.

These two settings are not ideal for the load-obsessed, but they should suffice for most users, and a choice of two options is certainly better than the fixed loading of 10k ohms offered by the Qualia Indigo (see later).

On the rear panel of each of the two signal boxes are three input jacks (RCA) and one "balanced" MC input (XLR), the latter selectable with the front panel's MC 1 setting. The output is single-ended, both on RCA jacks or "convenience" XLRs. Each audio chassis also has a ground terminal, and a multipin connector for the umbilical to the power supply.

The power supply is housed in a hefty black case whose 5mm-thick faceplate bears a Phasemation logo in gold. Inside are a massive R-core transformer, and a tube rectifier augmented with a pair of large chokes.

The signal path appears to be a hybrid design with a solid-state input gain stage and a double-winding step-up transformer (for the two gain and load settings), followed by three tubes per channel: two 12AX7 and one 12AU7. The instruction manual makes a single mention of tubes. My review sample of the EA-1000 gave me no problems, but it was only when I read the manual's "Trouble Shooting Guide" that I learned that if there's no sound immediately on turn-on, it could be because "The vacuum tubes are worked in the equipment." I can tell you that the Phasemation EA-1000's sound did not easily give away the tubed basis of its amplification circuit.

As with ViV Lab's Rigid Float tonearm, which I wrote about last month, the EA-1000's instructions, while better than some, are inadequate and poorly translated. After having trouble removing the six Phillips-head screws that secure the bottom plate of the audio chassis in order to get a look inside (I didn't want to strip the screws), I found online this Google-translated description: "Phasemation designers understand that good singing is put on a very weak signals affect sexual interference with and the need for a greater degree of amplification value, causing significant rigor required to separate requirements."

Also online, I found this description of the first gain stage "EA-1000 internal circuit design is the use of top-T-1 boost cattle for primary gain, and then to each channel two 12AX7 and a 12AU7 vacuum tube amplification circuit, respectively, as RIAA curve, as well as a power rectifier tube 5U4G." I didn't find any cattle but there appeared to be integrated circuits on a pcb just after the MC input jacks. I asked the importer for a description of the circuit but never received one.

Specifications: Phasemation specifies the EA-1000's gain as 39dB (MM) and 59 or 67dB (MC), depending on High or Low setting. Since these different gains are tied to the different input impedances, I assume the input is transformer coupled. Overload margins at 1kHz are specified as 250mV (MM), 11mV (MC Low), and 25mV (MC High), all of which are more than comfortable. Deviation from the RIAA curve is a claimed ±0.3dB, 20Hz–20kHz. The output voltage is 200mV, which is on the low side, while the output impedance is 750 ohms—on the high side, but not problematically so.

Sound: With either the Transfiguration Proteus (0.24mV output) or Lyra Etna (0.56mV) cartridge, the EA-1000 produced quiet backgrounds with just a slight hint of hiss audible when I put an ear next to a tweeter at relatively high output levels. This is a very quiet tubed phono preamp.

Through the EA-1000, music was finely and delicately drawn, sounding sweet but not cloying, feathery but not smotheringly soft. Transient attacks, though smooth and not at all sharp, were noticeably clean, precise, and orderly. Images were solid yet ethereal, presented on a very wide and especially deep and airy soundstage. High-frequency extension was complete, with no hint of rolloff or tubey softness. Whatever warmth the tubes provided was spread across the audioband and hidden within pleasing folds of music.

Only the bottommost frequencies were somewhat less than fully realized compared to what I hear through my reference phono preamplifier, the Ypsilon VPS-100. The full weight of the low end was somewhat diminished, but what was there was very well controlled and commensurate with the rest of the audioband, which overall was more delicate and pleasingly polite than the Ypsilon's, which presents greater solidity, body, and weight—and, at $26,000, costs almost twice as much.

Along with textural delicacy and detail, the Phasemation excelled at delivering rich, saturated harmonic colors. The Electric Recording Company's recent "must-have" reissue of Leonid Kogan's sexually charged performance of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, with Constantin Silvestri conducting the Paris Conservatory Orchestra (LP, EMI ERC 007), was delivered with reach-out-and-touch string textures almost too pleasurable to bear, and a razor-sharp image of Kogan's violin. (This LP is being pressed in an edition of 300 copies for $500 each; an original LP will cost you over $3000.) In other words, the Phasemation's definition of edges was as good as I've heard from any phono preamp, though it was also easily able to delineate the differences between the Etna and Proteus cartridges.

Yet when I played the Kinks' Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround: Part One (UK LP, Pye NSPL18359), which can sound bright through lesser gear, the Phasemation decoded all of the high-frequency information, well separating instruments and, especially, the voices of Ray and Dave Davies and the others, which can easily get buried in the HF jangle of harmonica and guitars. The opening tune, "The Contenders," features a pounding piano that was as easy to follow and "see" in three dimensions as I've ever heard it. This album hasn't much bottom, nor is it particularly dynamic, so nothing was lost through the EA-1000, which was able to spotlight its considerable strengths.

The EA-1000 is a beautifully balanced, well-executed phono preamp that excels at delicacy, without sounding soft or timid. If you listen mainly to rock or otherwise aggressive music, it probably shouldn't be your first choice—but if your diet is primarily acoustic folk or jazz, chamber music, or female vocals and you can spend $15,000, this one should be on your list.

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Footnote 1:Phasemation, Kyodo Denshi Engineering Co., Ltd., Ikebe-cho 4900-1, Tsuzuki-ku Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa 224-0053, Japan. Tel: (81) 045-934-5234. Fax: (81) 045-934-7576. Web: www.phasemation.com. North American distributor: Axiss Distribution (2014); American Sound of Canada (2025), 12261 Yonge St., Richmond Hill, ON L4E 3M7, Canada. Tel: (905) 773-7810. Web: audiopathways.com