Phono Stage Listening Session, By Ori Mizrahi-Shalom

This is the listening session after the phono stage basic design class in the morning.  Listen to some DIY and inexpensive commercial phono stages.

Intro 10 min

Main Phono Units:

Jim Hunton’s Pass DIY Pearl II, separate power supply with shunt regulators, Dayton foil/film caps, DC servo. ($800 total, 20 min main focus)

Hagerman Cornet tube phono stage, including tube rectifier, added zener shunt regulation and NOS tubes. ($800 total, 20 min main focus)

Ori’s simple phono stage (proprietary design) with shunt regulation and battery supply. ($NA, 10 min quick demo)

Reference Commercial units:

iFi Zen: entry level opamp-based ($179, 10 min quick demo).

Luxman EQ-500 ($6,695, NOS tubes, 20 min)

Another attraction is the power amp.

We will use Tony Chipelo’s personal Music Reference RM-10 mkI (designed by the late Roger Mosjeski) for this event.  It is a unique design that extracts 27 WPC from a pair of EL-84 tubes by utilizing a 700V supply while keeping the power dissipation within spec.  A new version of the Music Reference RM-10 mkII will be available soon, so this is a preview of an amp in the making.

Closing discussion and replay tracks 30 min

Total time for the listening event is around 2 hours

Tracks:

classic Jazz, instrumental: Georgia – Teddy Edwards Quartet – Timeless SJP139

pop, male vocal: Wild World – Cat Stevens – AM SP4519

pop, female vocal: Riahnon – Fleetwood Mac – WB MSK2281

classic Jazz, instrumental: Ebony – Jack DeJohnette/Cedar Walton/Ron Carter – LimeTree MLP0021

classical, piano solo, instrumental: Chopin nocturnes – Tomas Vasary, piano – Deutche Gramophon 136486 stereo

classical, orchestral: Rachmaninoff/Symphonic Dances – Kiryl Kondrashin conducting the Moscow Philharmonic – Angel/Melodia 40093 Stereo