Whest Audio MC REF V MK4. My new toy.


Whest Audio MC REF V MK4 – My last present this year!

Well I’ve got it and have lived with this unit for just over a week now.
I’m going to write a smallish review of the unit which was conducted during a late night listening session with a couple of audiophilers. Call them Barry and Gary for now.

The MC REF V is now in its MK4 form and is really nice to look at. It is quite simple looking but on inspection of the internals, contains more ‘stuff’ than most phono stages out there. The exterior dimensions are approx 17” x 12” x 3” (430mm x 300 x 75mm) and you get 2 identical units. YES each unit is a fully self contained channel.
The main audio board takes up about 2/3rds of the whole chassis then you have 2 ‘goldish’ metal plates which go from back to front, then a sizeable power transformer.
The chassis is very well made. It is hand welded CNC aluminium in RED. It is not like my Lamm chassis or the Manley Steelhead chassis which are just cheap bent aluminium affairs. The MK4 chassis is stiff but light which James says needs to be for the internal suspension to work properly.

Load, gain and capacitance changing is underneath tucked away behind a small removable panel. I set my unit up like this: 65dB and 100ohms with 200pf of capacitance. The MC REF V has been designed from the ground up as an MC ONLY phono stage. It does not do MM but can do high output MC. According to James at Whest Audio, at this level you should NOT be using MM – too true!

Having changed some of my main big systems front end recently, I put the MC REF V ( MK4 from now on) into this system which comprises a TW Raven AC/ Graham Phantom/ A90/ Whest PS.30RDT Special Edition/ Lamm LL2 preamp/ ATC SCM150A. The LL2 is not the Deluxe version.

The Raven AC was recommended by many guys here and I finally got to hear one. Yes it’s extremely good. I heard it with the old and new power supply. To tell the truth I could not hear that much (if any) difference in the power supplies but opted for the newer one as it looks much better and I got a good deal.

Back to the MK4. Barry and Gary knocked on the door at about 7pm. Both are recent Whest converts. I say recent because both heard the 30RDT Special Edition a few weeks back and ditched their ‘known’ phono stages and got the 30 RDT Special Edition. Barry is an ex- Boulder 1008 user and says the Boulder really does struggle in a lot of ways compared to the Whest. But says the Whest is so much quieter and dynamic with better everything.

Anyway, back to the Mk4. I have been playing Yellow Jackets – Hornet LP as well as Kate Bush, Coltrane (John), Talk Talk - Laughing Stock, Oscar Peterson and other good stuff.

First on was one of my ‘new’ favourites – a Yellow Jackets track called Priscilla. A lovely track that changes and has much inside it. We all know this track well through the PS.30RDT SE. But now it was the turn of the MK4.
BLOODY WOW!!!! From the very beginning it hits you with a level of detail that sounds like live music. It is really REAL and able to get so much more out of the Raven. The Raven AC sounded like a HUGE ultra expensive turntable!
The lead guitar has so much more power and detail, soul and space and everything has ‘SLAM’ and purpose.
There should be a warning with this phono stage: ‘Should not be used for background listening’. This thing is so detailed that even at low volumes you hear EVERYTHING. The SLAM is there even at the lowest of volumes and the immediacy too.

The musical flow through the MK4 is staggering.
Just listening to Kate Bush – Lionheart, the music just does not stop. It’s really hard to explain but you know when you go to a small live gig, how it’s so musical from beginning to end, well the Mk4 is like that. Whatever you play, it’s bloody musical. I tried my daughters Justin Timberlake’s first LP – musical and REALLY REALLY impressive.
Abba – Move on – unbelievable musicianship, musical and REAL. Gary bought down a real Hifi LP which I actually hate, Jazz at the Pawnshop. Although I hate this LP it was still musical, impressive (yes) but I can’t bare the contrived playing.
Give me any of the 50’s Jazz masters any day!

The soundstage on the MK4 is incredible. It is bigger than the 30RDT SE but has much more ambience in it. You can nearly feel the temperature of the recording environment:) But yes, it is that real and even has a ‘life’ of its own.
Kick drums have the SLAM but you also hear much more mid-band from the kick drum. You hear the skin, hammer and felt thumping through your body.
The whole bass region is quite an eye opener as you realise just how much recorded bass instruments have ‘sounds’ or harmonics in the mid-band upwards.
The mid and higher frequencies are amazing with a clarity that is beyond hifi superlatives. It’s because of the overall clarity of the MK4 that all LPs sound so real.
I don’t have a hifi system anymore but a ‘music playback system’.

Back to Kate Bush. I love this LP as it reminds me of an ex-girlfriend. (just hope my wife doesn’t read this). She loved this LP and bought it on cassette while she was living in Italy. Kate’s voice using the MK4 has got to be the single most moving experience in the history of my audio system. I could have kissed here, she was right there, solid in this expanse of a soundstage. She did not move at all but we all notice when she did move off mic as you could hear what sounded like her clothing rustle.
Barry and Gary at this stage were just ‘gob-smacked’. They know my system and thought the 30RDT Special Edition was excellent. The best was yet to come.

So, flicking through the LPs on offer we played a track from the Oscar Peterson Affinity LP. It’s MONO but excellent. The PS.30RDT Special Edition with its superb channel balance and resolving power played this brilliantly UNTIL the MK4 went on. You want to hear Oscar play with Soul, check out the MK4! OMG Barry had tears in his eyes. Oscars piano playing was tremendous, soulful and with a pace that was so real. Did it sound like MONO – NO! It had dimension, space and reality with that power and SLAM. You could hear the delicacy in his arthritic fingers as he soulfully glided over the keyboard. The Raven never sounded so good.

What a pleasure owning the MK4. My best piece of kit EVER. Why? Because do the math. The Raven One is about 90% of the AC so TW says. So you get a Raven One and save the rest to get a MC REF V MK4. It’s going to be MUCH better than getting a Raven AC with ANY top flight phono stage.
There must come a point in a system that the phono stage is just holding things back. I think it is earlier than most people think. I don’t think that it’s necessary to go to a Raven AC or equivalent. I now think it would be better sonically to get a very good $5000 table and a far better phono stage.

Are Barry and Gary sold on the idea? Yes but the current funding options are limited for them at present. Barry will be the first to move to the MK4 I reckon. It is that staggering and with its ability to show you just what is on your LP collection, I would only recommend it to anyone that listens to music and not background ‘sounds’. The MK4 takes no prisoners. It’s highly detailed in a real musical sense, ULTRA dynamic with SLAM like nothing else I have auditioned near or above this level. It’s extremely quiet, quieter than the Boulder 1008 by a large margin enabling you to hear so much more into the music and being all discrete Class-A gets nice and warm.



dcarol
Dcarol,
Let me quote a line from Steppenwolf's "Tighten Up Your Wig" found on Steppenwolf The Second:

"Your mind is too narrow and it's no surprise
If you fell on a pin, you'd be blind in both eyes"

Thanks to John Kay.
DCarol, No one here has to do anything. When Raul started the thread on MM/MI cartridges, I was as skeptical as you. However, for a few hundred bucks and some DIY work, I was able to give a listen to some of the better cartridges mentioned above, and I am smitten to the point where I listen much less to my three MC cartridges than to my MMs. (Actually, so far I find myself preferring MI types.) This is not to say that I will give up on MC cartridges any time soon, but.....
well, i've had my Whest MC-REF V mark 4 for around 5-6 weeks now and love it.
i upgraded from the PS .30R.

the soundstage is huge compared to the PS.30R.
i am hearing a huge amount of detail, things in the background that i have not heard before. And i said the
same thing about the PS .30R which was great, this makes it just much more so.
i hear the most in the highs. Everything is just spot on,
right in the mix, you can hear so much more of just what is being played in the song.
also, Ambience and the effects used in the song really shine through and let me hear so much more.
incredible phono preamp!!

Interesting thread, very enthusiastic.

So much so it had me taking a closer look at the product in discussion so I went on line looking at a couple of web sites, manufacturer, dealer and end user in relation to this specific product and read that the phono actually offers MM & MC so some of the info. above is confusing and or misleading.

So from what I have read this phono does offer MM as an option correct?

I can't seem to find any pics showing the back of the units, not seeing any switches and or knobs of any sort is this only for one arm connection?

Via connection to ones pre-amp to this phono are both RCA and XLR connections available?

If it isn't for one arm how the heck can you have both MM/MC? with no switches of some sort.

In relation to SETTING the load, I don't see options on the fly to change this, no switch or dial of some sort making it easy and convenient (user friendly) but instead have read with this unit you basically have to remove, obviously disconecting everything and underneith the unit you remove a plate and change the load & gain which seems odd to me at the asking price of close to $20K. I owned the Audia Flight and theirs was similar but on the back and it was not easy or convenient either.

The manufactures web site doesn't clearly provide all of this info. or possibly I'm missing something, if so kindly assist.

Not being able to see the back of the two units and from what I'm reading being two separate units so I gather you have to do the gain and load in both and the actual units have their own power sources so that means two power cords, is this correct?

Would be interesting to read some other comparisons to other phono's including tube.

A few of my thought's in relation to some comments made by the OP, you wrote;

"The Raven One is about 90% of the AC so TW says. So you get a Raven One and save the rest to get a MC REF V MK4. It’s going to be MUCH better than getting a Raven AC with ANY top flight phono stage.
There must come a point in a system that the phono stage is just holding things back. I think it is earlier than most people think. I don’t think that it’s necessary to go to a Raven AC or equivalent. I now think it would be better sonically to get a very good $5000 table and a far better phono stage."

Firstly I can't say from first hand experience because I never owned and AC but did own the AC3 and no way did the Raven One offer 90% of the AC3's sonics, in my set-up the two sounded more different than I would say similar and the only item being swapped out was the Raven One and AC3.

I bought the Raven One for similar reason because of what I had read but upon several visits to a freinds place who owns a AC I always heard something dramatically more pleasing and different so I decided to take the plunge and got a AC3 to compare.

So that being said if this Whest phono is all that I don't understand why the OP would want or suggest to others reading to settle on less, hold back any of it's full potential by not pairing it up with a superior table. I'm not trying to being negative, just don't understand and don't agree with these statements made in relation to such.

Next if I believed everything I read I would have just settled for living with my AC3 which I actually could have because it's an amazing table if I had not heard ...., similar statements being made in relation to the Black Knight vs AC3 but again I can say from my first hand experience the Black Knight is all that and more and well worth the asking price, I'm very happy I made the plunge.

I know this is not a TW thread and I only brought this up because of what I read of the OP's opening thread who actually owns a TW AC and if one truely wants to hear the full potential of his new phono I would sugest to move up and add two additional motors or there are other options available for improvement which trickle down from the BN.

Personally just like the OP is trying different phono's and is so enthusiastic I'm also doing the same with actual tables but just so happens to be within the TW product line, trying to EXTRACT the most out of their offerings.

I have tried the Boulder mentioned above, Audia Flight and a few others and found they all offer differences but in the end in comparison to my present VAC's phono non have had me wanting to keep them, the above phono's are quieter and do offer differences but there is still allot more going on then just that, currently the VAC just sounds like real music having one taping their toes, finding them self at times singing along and so on.

Look forward to learning more about the above mentioned phono


Dcarol....I hate you. :) Having recently adjusted to my PS0.3R, I'm now utterly disgusted after reading your report....I want one (or maybe a Ref2 :)

As an aside on the MM/MI debate, I don't think James Henriot is trying to be controversial. It's clear that he is merely responding to "market prioritisation" i.e. the popular view for many years that "coils rule". However I can concur with the sophisticated ears of Lew and 'Feil that MIs do indeed have something to offer. It's just a shame that the industry has allowed research into this area to fall into neglect in favour of pushing the more expensive MC offerings. It would be nice to see a "cost is no object", with tight engineering tolerances, MI cart evolve sometime! (Would anyone be brave enough?) You are always left with a feeling that MI/MMs are built down to a price rather than up. The fact they can sound amazing despite this is credit to them.