Vincent Audio has introduced what its says is an affordably priced, two-piece phono preamplifier designed to extract the ultimate sound quality from high end moving coil (MC) and moving magnet (MM) phonograph cartridges.
Vincent Audio’s PHO-8 phono preamplifier
The Vincent Audio PHO-8 phono preamplifier consists of two matching, but separate components — one a very high quality phono preamplifier section, and the other a physically isolated high performance, low-noise power supply.
According to the company, when dealing with the vanishingly small signal levels generated by today’s high performance moving coil phonograph cartridges, the high-gain signal preamplifier circuits can be extremely vulnerable to noise, especially from the power supply circuits, and this problem is solved by housing the power supply in separate chassis and carefully shield both the power supply and the preamplifier.
The Vincent PHO-8 power supply has a large transformer, large filter capacitors, and a precision voltage regulator that, the company says, completely eliminate power line ripples. This carefully filtered DC is delivered to the phono preamplifier stage over a shielded cable and a five-pin DIN plug.
The preamplifier chassis has two RCA inputs and a ground connection, and two RCA outputs. A two-way front panel switch is used to select MC or MM gain levels. It uses a detachable IEC-style power cord, and is offered in either black or silver finish.
The Vincent PHO-8 is currently available at a suggested retail price of $399.95, from WS Distributing.
