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Walk into a record store, look at the racks, and you'll see 10 guys, 10 solo artists, whose records don't have one good song among them. The word is out: the sensitive alt-rock folkie-dude thing is way, way overdone.

Fortunately, one of the creators of that now choked and muddled genre (to nearly paraphrase the gone but still mighty Doo Rag) is still with us after more than a…

Brooks Berdan was on a roll. The veteran Southern California retailer, who has sold and serviced high-end equipment for more than 30 years, had seized the opportunity to voice a pet peeve.

"Some people get too hung up on the equipment they're reviewing," he proclaimed. "They spend too much time listening to the equipment and not enough time listening to the music."

Berdan's pronouncement was issued during Home Entertainment 2006, as we stood outside his excellent-sounding Jadis-VTL-Wilson-Cardas room in the Los Angeles Sheraton Gateway…

Ron Sutherland told me that his design brief for The Direct Line Stage was to get close to the performance of "cost-no-object" line-stage preamps at a reasonable price. Not that there's anything skimpy about the Direct Line Stage, its casework, or its faceplate. This substantial unit tips the scale at 24 lbs—three times the weight of Maxik…

I called Ron Sutherland to catch up and chat about his Direct Line Stage preamplifier ($3000). Confident that reviewing his PhD phono preamplifier for the May 2005 Stereophile had given me a head start, I jumped right in, complimenting him on the PhD and asking him to explain how the Direct Line Stage had evolved from it. Sutherland has a knack for simplifying complex technical details, but his answer was even simpler than I'd expected. How did the Direct Line Stage evolve from the PhD? It didn't. It was going…

Description: Remote-controlled line preamplifier. Inputs: 4 unbalanced (RCA). Input impedance: 42k ohms (29k ohms in attenuated-gain mode). Output: 1 unbalanced (RCA). Output impedance: 270 ohms. Maximum voltage output: 8V RMS. Input sensitivity (voltage for maximum output): 3V (18V in attenuated-gain mode). Maximum voltage gain: 20.7dB (3.8dB in attenuated-gain mode). Distortion (THD+noise): 0.01%, A-weighted, at 2.4V and 1kHz. Power consumption: 10W.
Dimensions: 17" (431mm) W by 4.25" (108mm) H by 15" (381mm) D. Weight: 24 lbs (10.9kg).
Serial Number Of…

Analog Source: VPI HR-X turntable & tonearm, Lyra Titan cartridge.
Digital Source: Simaudio Andromeda CD player.
Preamplification: Sutherland PhD phono stage, Halcro dm10 preamplifier; VTL 7.5, Placette Active line stages.
Power Amplifiers: VTL Ichiban, Halcro dm58, Mark Levinson No.20.6 (all monoblocks).
Loudspeakers: Wilson Audio Sophia 1 & 2, Thiel CS6.
Cables: Interconnect: Stereovox SEI 600II, Shunyata Research. Speaker: Stereovox LSP-600C, Shunyata Research. AC: Shunyata Research.
Accessories: Shunyata…

I measured the Sutherland Direct Line Stage with its inputs mainly set to Direct. In that condition, the maximum gain was to specification, at 20.75dB. With the inputs set to Attn, the gain dropped to 4dB, also to spec, and appropriate for high-level sources such as CD players. The Direct Line Stage preserved absolute polarity; ie, was noninverting. Set to Direct with the internal jumpers, the preamp's input impedance was close to the specified figure, at 40k ohms over most of the audioband, though it did drop to 20.5k ohms at 20kHz. This should not give problems…

ZP80 Zone Player: Sonosnet-connected D/A processor and line preamplifier. Connectors: Ethernet (two), analog line in (RCAs, autodetecting), analog line out (RCAs, variable or fixed level), digital S/PDIF out (RCA coaxial and TosLink). Front-panel buttons: Volume, Mute. THD: <0.009%, 20Hz–20kHz. No other specifications listed.
Dimensions: 5.3" (136mm) W by 5.4" (139mm) D by 2.9" (74mm) H. Weight: 1.5 lbs (0.7kg).
Finish: Light-gray "PC Grade" plastic.
Serial Number Of Units Reviewed: 00-0E058-20-02-D8:F and 00-0E-58-20-02-9A:4. Hardware version: 1.1.16…