Superb PHONO Preamp ?

hi Extremephono, your comments on the Io being bigger, lusher, and slower are counter to my experience. I agree with Rushton and Albert. The Io seems very neutral to me. If you mate the the Io with a neutral arm like my Graham 2.2 it will be quite neutral, if you are using say, a VPI arm, it will be more rounded and lush. Same with phono cables, my XLO Sig. was slightly warm whereas the Quattro fil i am currently using is more neutral. I recently lucked into a used Clearaudio Insider Gold that is very neutral and vivid compared to my Koetsu RSP II. There is nothing lush, slow or noisey about the Insider/Io combo.

I would expect the ss phono stages to be slightly quieter than the Io, but other than that issue i believe the Io to be outstanding in every parameter. I think the Io is very flexible and will reflect the associated gear it is matched to and not color or assign it's own signature.

I am leaning toward the Io signature; I don't think my small room can handle the heat from 2 power supplies.

extremephono - you're the only one i've heard of that has tried the pentagon fono-stage. i presently own & enjoy one, run thru a melos music-director preamp. any recommendations on how to improve on it, w/o breaking the bank? buying used, of course... ;~)

thanks, doug s.

My comment on Aesthetix is solely relative to other phono stages I heard. It is more noisy than Vendetta and other solid state and bigger/lusher than solid state should not be a surprise, but it doesn't mean that it is all gooey like a Jadis.

But, if you have not heard the Linto, Vendetta, or Groove, it is hard to grasp how 'fast' these phono stages are relative to tube, no matter how good, tubes are 1000x slower than the best solid state. That's fact, no design can fundamentally make tube to have a faster rise-time and higher damping factor than solid state design. For personal preference, I like fast, high impact sound, and thus I am using linestage from Spectral, and active speakers like ATC SCM50ASL.

Perhaps I should rephrase that "Aesthetix is the fastest tube phono stage, but slower than the fastest solid state phono stage"... that's what I really meant. It is definitely a much better stage the ARC PH3, but still more noisy than the PH3.

The COTY award went to Connoisseur, but your reference to the ranking actually is the 'Best Buy' award, which meant to say the Linto was a better value than Connoisseur, not a surprise.

The COTY is cost-no-object accolade, but it is also not exhaustive, as only candidates submitted for COTY competition (major cost $$$-wise for manufacturers), and the setup, hand-holding, etc has to be first-class to compete in COTY. While Best Buy is a loose entry requirement, and the reviewers were given broad liberty and a budget of 'stars' to vote for BB products.

hi Extremephono, you are correct, i have not listened to the ss phono stages you mention and they may very well be a little faster and quieter than the Io.

I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of your comments. But i do think that the fact that you sell Tom Evans "the Groove" should be mentioned when you endorse it. I have read the reviews and your comments are consistent with what i have read.

Don't get me wrong, i think you are trying to be helpful and look forward to your continued participation in this and other threads. In fact, i may e-mail you regarding an audition of "the Groove". So, please don't take my comments as anything more than a friendly suggestion.