Vincent PHO-500

A phono section is the sum of its parts. And to make a complete system you need a turntable with an arm, cartridge, phonostage, and cables to and from the phono preamp to your line-level preamplifier. Since most audiophiles have a budget for the whole system, yet buy these components a la carte, whatever money you save on one part you can then devote to another. For anyone trying to assemble a high-performance phono system on a reasonable budget, the PHO-500 could be an ideal choice, since it delivers a high-quality, low-noise signal that easily mates with a wide variety of high-performance front ends. And you get the added benefit of a device that allows you to record your most treasured LPs at 96/24 resolution. Well done, Vincent. Well done.

Type: Two-piece solid- state phono preamplifier Input sensitivity: Moving magnet: 58 mV; moving coil, 6.8mV Signal-to-noise: Moving magnet: >83dB; moving coil: >70dB Input impedance: Moving magnet: 47k ohms; moving coil: 100 ohms 1000 ohms (adjustable) Output impedance: 250 ohms Dimensions: 130 x 95 x 205mm (for power supply and PHO-500 each) Weight: 1.4 kg (power supply), 1 kg (PHO-500)