Phono Preamp Reviews

One of the pleasures of reviewing—and also using—products from Pass Laboratories is an encounter with Nelson Pass's writing, which can usually be found in the owner's manual and is always competent, insightful, and sometimes funny. How often do you get real pleasure and insight from reading an owner's manual?

Pass Labs has a lot of owner's manuals online. Reading through one, I encountered the following passage; you'll find the same or similar language in other manuals and on the Pass Labs website. I present it not only because I admire it and agree with the philosophy it expresses but also because it captures the spirit of the product under review—the XP-27 phono preamplifier ($12,075 in silver)—at least as I've experienced it during an extended review period. Here it is, quoted at length with some slight adjustments to make it consistent with Stereophile's editorial style...

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.

Three high-performance products were subjected to second opinions and/or measurements in recent issues: Channel D's Lino C 3.3 phono preamplifier, Mola Mola's Tambaqui D/A processor, and Pass Labs' XP-32 line preamplifier.

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.

Gold Note's $11,999 PH-1000 is by a considerable margin the most sophisticated, most configurable phono preamplifier that any audio manufacturer has ever produced, at least that I know of. Remarkably, considering all that flexibility and sophistication, using and adjusting the PH-1000 is straightforward.

Ever since I stopped using my Audio Research SP10 preamplifier in the early 1990s—its eight phono-stage tubes used to get too noisy too quickly—I tried a variety of standalone phono preamplifiers. Seeing the most service through the 1990s and 2000s were, first, a Mod Squad Phono Drive EPS, then a Linn Linto, both of which I purchased. But when I measured Channel D's Seta Model L, which Michael Fremer reviewed in the August 2010 issue, the Linto was pushed to one side. The battery-powered Seta L (footnote 1) had the lowest noise and distortion I had encountered in a phono preamplifier, and I eventually bought the sample I had been sent for a follow-up review in 2013.

We usually save the question of value for the end of a review, but this time it's worth mentioning up front, if only because PS Audio has been in the news lately. Late last August, the company announced they were switching from a traditional dealer network to a factory-direct sales model. So, to some readers, it might seem fair to judge the brand-new, full-featured Stellar Phono Preamplifier ($2500) against ones selling in stores for $5000.