Gramophone Dreams

In my world, the quiet ritual of choosing a record and placing it carefully on the platter is always followed by a sequence of three rough sounds.

With the volume at listening level, I hear the bristle-by-bristle rasping of my stylus brush as it drags across the exposed tip of the cartridge cantilever. Next, as I dip the diamond in Onzow gel, I hear a little suction cup pop and feel the compliance of the cantilever's rubber-tire suspension. Finally, my brain registers that sizzle sound as the stylus contacts the grooved surface. These sounds are tattooed on my brain. They "cue up" my consciousness, preparing it for attentive listening.

I've been hearing these electrically charged noises since I was a child playing my father's records. What I cherish about them most is their raw, mind-triggering, motor-revving physicality. There is something about a cantilever shaking a piece of iron or a wire coil in a magnetic field that feels like a generator generating current.

For me, the sonic difference between digital and analog is simple: a processor-processing and a converter-converting makes recordings sound less physical than a mechanical generator-generating.

I've noticed a similar effect in audio amplification. To my ears, the more amplification involves chunks of iron and currents pulsing through wire coils, the more tangible the sound. This tangibility is most obvious when amplifying the low-level currents generated by moving coil phono cartridges. Of all the ones I've used, those phono stages with overspecified power transformers, choke-filtered linear power supplies, and LR (inductor-resistor) or LCR (inductor-capacitor-resistor) RIAA correction sound the most corporeal. This type of phono amplification is expensive to make and thus rare in the audiophile marketplace.

Kitsuné HiFi LCR-1 MK5 phono stage
The Kitsuné HiFi KTE LCR-1 MK5 phono stage I am about to describe (footnote 1) is one of these rare products. It is described by its importer-distributor, Kitsuné HiFi's Tim Connor, as an LCR EQ-corrector that uses handwound 80% nickel-cored inductors and a linear power supply encased in a heavy, separate chassis. It costs between $1198 and $1398, depending on options.

The LCR-1 MK5 is the latest version of a design by Korean engineer Kuo-Wei Tsai (also known as Kevin Valab) that began taking form 20 years ago. Kuo-Wei's original design was inspired by the totally passive and extremely expensive Japanese-made Tango EQ-600P LCR RIAA module, which was itself a recreation of the original Pultec/Western Electric phono-equalizer circuit. For cost-saving reasons, the phono-EQ in most consumer-audio circuits employs no transformers or inductors—only tiny, inexpensive capacitors and resistors in either passive or active (feedback-type) RIAA-deemphasis circuits. The made-in-Korea KTE LCR-1 MK5 is one of only a few commercially available LCR or LR phono equalizers.

A first impression: With the Koetsu Rosewood Signature Platinum moving coil cartridge, loaded at 100 ohms, the LCR-1 MK5 distinguished itself by presenting The Tony Williams Lifetime (Turn It Over) (1970 Polydor LP 24-4021) with more force and unbridled energy than either the tubed Sunvalley SV-EQ1616D RIAA equalizer kit or my long-term reference tube phono stage, the Tavish Design Adagio. The Tavish Adagio is a superb preamp that has better-than-good vigor and drive, but it's not quite as much allegro vivo as the KTE LCR-1 MK5.

The LCR-1 turned Lifetime's (Turn It Over) into a memorable, fast-moving, trance-inducing late-night buzz. It even out–vim'n'vigored my solid state phono stage reference, the John Curl–designed Parasound Halo JC 3+.

Before the MK5 version of the Kitsuné KTE LCR-1 arrived, I had been using and enjoying the MK4 version for almost a year. When I exchanged the MK4 for the MK5, my ears perked up. The MK4 version was enjoyably well-controlled and detailed, with enough mass, definition, and texture to make listening interesting, but maybe for my taste, a bit too plain-vanilla. I found the MK5 distinctly more arousing and engaging.

Something tells me that Kuo-Wei Tsai's addition of high-nickel inductors to the MK5's RIAA circuit might be contributing to this enhanced vigor. Another reason the LCR-1 feels high-torque and tight-cornering might be Kuo-Wei's choice of output buffers. He could have cut corners by using a popular, inexpensive op-amp, but he chose instead to use a discrete, four-transistor "diamond" impedance converter (footnote 2).

Description: The LCR-1 is encased in two matching 3" × 6.5" × 12" black-anodized aluminum chassis connected by a flexible, 30" DC power cable fitted with cinch-type quick-release connectors. Though it is tempting to stack them, to minimize noise, the power chassis is best kept on a separate shelf or as far from the circuit-chassis as possible.

Located on the circuit-chassis bottom, a quartet of four-pin DIP switches allows users to easily set gain at any of 13 levels between 40dB and 72dB and resistive loading at any of 12 values from 47k ohms to 14 ohms.

With My Sonic Lab's Ultra Eminent EX: The highest-level cartridge in my arsenal is the $6995 My Sonic Lab Ultra Eminent EX, designed by a Japanese master that I have long favored, Yoshio Matsudaira, who has designed for Supex, Koetsu, Air Tight, and Miyabi, among other companies. The Ultra Eminent EX is a moving coil cartridge with an unusually low 0.6 ohm internal impedance and a surprisingly normal 0.3mV output.

To achieve this output from the EX's tiny coils requires strong magnets, a requirement Matsudaira satisfies with his unique SH-µX high-permeability core material.

Unusually for a cartridge of such low internal impedance, My Sonic Lab recommends loading the Ultra Eminent EX at "100–800 ohms (ideal is around 400 ohms)." The closest choice with the LCR-1 was 200 ohms, so I started there.

Playing Kalpana Improvisation (Nonesuch Explorer Series LP 72022), the Ultra Eminent EX reproduced the timbre on Sen Gupta's sarod and Latif Ahmed Khan's tabla in a straight-up, natural manner but not vividly enough to be exciting. Likewise, Moondog's The Viking of Sixth Avenue (Moondog Records HJRLP19) sounded true of timbre and relaxed but really not happening pacewise or excitementwise.

Seeking a more dynamic sound, I switched to the LCR-1's next-highest setting, 47k ohms. Then, for fun, I played a 1986 white-vinyl reissue (Line Records LILP 4.00263 J) of Big Star's 1972 #1 Record and was happily rewarded with a taut, well-paced, lifeforce–infused reminder of how much I still love Alex Chilton. The sound was strong and forward-driving in a way I think classic rock aficionados would enjoy. Still loaded at 47k ohms, I played something totally different: Evensong for Ascensiontide (Argo LP ZRG 511), sung by The Choir of St. John's College Cambridge, directed by George Guest. The chants, hymns, organ, and prayers of the Ascensiontide service moved along effortlessly but were shadowed by a halo of fuzzy, blurry "air" that I found distracting.

With a specified 0.6 ohm internal impedance, the Ultra Eminent EX should play well with the LCR-1's lowest value (14 ohm) load resistor, so I tried that.

At 14 ohms, the fuzz on Ascensiontide disappeared completely. Vocal intelligibility improved considerably. Low organ notes were presented with more detail in a tauter, more harmonically believable, less hi-fi–ish musical presentation. But I still was not satisfied.

At 47k ohms, I thought the fuzzy halo sounded like IM distortion. At 14 ohms, the midrange sounded quiet and "low-distortion," like my HiFiMan Susvara or HE6 headphones. But it also sounded unnaturally dark, excessively tight, and closed in.

The LCR-1 would not permit me to load the My Sonic Lab Ultra Eminent EX at its designer-recommended 400 ohms, but at 200 ohms it sounded very good. It was not too dark or too tight, and it was quiet.

The Ultra Eminent EX came fully alive when I ran it through my 80% nickel-core EMIA 1:10 step-up transformer (SUT) into the LCR-1's 47k ohm load with gain set at 52dB. That arrangement provided plenty of light, beauty, and dimensionality plus a complete freedom of rhythmic expression

With the Zu Audio Denon: Some of my friends modify Denon DL-103's, but I like my 103's stock—or better yet, tested and sorted with thick aluminum bodies like Zu Audio's Zu/DL-103 Mk.II in its Grade-2 Premium version.

As Art Dudley used to, I usually run the Zu/DL-103 through an Auditorium 23 SUT made to match the Denon's high (40 ohm) internal impedance. This combination sounds fast, polished, and vivacious. Without the SUT, the 10:1 rule suggests an input impedance of 400 ohms, but, as mentioned above, the KTE LCR-1 doesn't have a 400 ohm setting. So again, I started at 200 ohms.

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Footnote 1: Kitsuné HiFi, 19410 Highway 99, Suite A #366, Lynnwood, WA 98036. Web: kitsunehifi.com

Footnote 2: See Cordell, Bob. Designing Audio Power Amplifiers, 2nd ed. Routledge, 2019 (p.267).