Aria phono preamp - Mike Elliot blog

Hello Jazdoc,

I am excited and fortunate to have the Aria WV5 XL in my possession. A landmark product like the WV will take 1-2 weeks minimum to get a handle on its performance.

When we put a component into our system, and something is immediately wrong, we know it. Truncated decays, flat presentation, severe problems with tonal coherency, etc., and out it goes immediately. But 5 minutes into listening to a new product and our mind is spinning out of control from hearing a level of refinement we never heard before, and we thought what we owned already was at the top-level of performance, well, we know we are in for a long-haul of evaluations. This is the WV. Seven hours for the first night was only the beginning.

There is much to evaluate here: the line stage vs. others, the phono stage vs. others, with or without the step-up transformers for MC, tube rolling in these two stages, etc. I am dead-tired of cable swapping so I will not even bother with this; the Dream State Dream Catcher PC and Jade Hybrid ICs will be left alone.

I have not written much on A'gon since the Gabriel Gold cables thread. It's a lot of work to write a review on such a landmark product as the WV. I tried this with the Aesthetix Io and Callisto Signature vs. the CAT Ultimate II over a year ago and I put a lot of hours to share my observations. So much playing with cables and tubes, night after night, it can go on and on.

When I read a Roy Gregory, Michael Fremer or Jonathan Valin multi-paged review of a top product, I can appreciate the significant amount of time they took to report their findings. And rather than spending all the time for that, I'd rather be up all night to enjoy the new level of performance the music now has in my home. But I am sure that I will have much to share by the end of the month. Most likely it will be with a handful of friends via email and then we'll see if I want to put forth the effort to document it all here.

John

Hi John,long time no contact,but no matter,I always remember a friend.Thats great news,looking forward to your thoughts down the road,enjoy,Bob

Hi Bob, yes this is great news. I am trying to enjoy the WV as much as I can the first few nights. I have read many comments that tube preamps can sound very good right out of the box and then they quickly sound horrible and then great again after 100-200 hours or so. So far, the WV is outstanding so I have not hit that "bad" period with 20 hours of play time and 20+ hours of standby time.

What is so cool about this preamp, line stage in particular, is its ability to support a huge library of tube types. The phono stage and line stage are typically suited for the 6DJ8/6922 tube family, but with a switch inside, so many others are supported. I have quite a stash of tubes from owning the Aesthetix Io/Callisto as well as several ARC, BAT and Counterpoint products since the mid 80s. But I also have tried out a few tube types I never owned before but purchased the last couple months while waiting for the WV to arrive. It is amazing how cheap some of these "oddball" tubes are on ebay. And one type tonight at $20 for five, really impressed me here. It displaced one of my favorite mid-priced 6DJ8 tubes by quite a margin.

The WV shows the sonic differences between the tube types to be the same characteristics as what I heard with the Aesthetix gear. However, these sonic differences between tube types are more significant now. I suspect it's due to the WV's greater resolving power. Some tubes are quite mellow with a most distant presentation and others give big and bold projection. So far the only tube that sounds horrible here is the 6H30...a quad that I had when I owned the BAT 31SE for 2 years. The stage was flat and objects were distant and muffled.

I own one coveted tube pair that is absolutely stunning in the CAT amps and the Aesthetix gear as well.....but their magic was most greatly achieved in the amps. And their stellar performance carries on in both stages of the WV. I lucked out and found another pair and will get those soon for the phono stage. And then all I have to do is repeat the process for one final pair.....for the line stage...once I get passed the "bad" period if it ever happens. But this cheapo tube that I got on ebay might just be the ticket for quite some time. Sure beats paying $200-400 for a pair of tubes!

It sounds like a complicated process but really it is only for 2 pairs of audio tubes. Mike Elliot loaded up the power supply with premium tubes that he hand selects for Counterpoint updated gear. I might play a little with one of the tubes but once I get the 2 pairs in the audio stages optimized, the lid goes back on and I can continue the WV's evaluation against other components in house.

John

Like Jafox, I received my Aria WV5 XL on April 14th. I have used the break in procedure Mike Elliott described in the user's manual on the Aria website. Mr. Elliott advises users to unplug the Aria WV5 from the power amps and then to plug the owner's CD player into the moving magnet input of the phono section. This all works just fine unless and until you forget and connect to your amps again. Could be a big noise. Anyway, this method seems to be working. I have about 80 hours on the unit and it seems to be coming along, getting fuller and richer than it was when first arriving, though it sounded pretty good at first, then sounded just a little less so just a few hours later.

Mr. Elliott's online user's manual is extremely useful. When I first got my WV5, I had no instructions for the remote control. I called Mike, he went onto the website and had something for all owners within a half hour. (Simple stuff: the remote only operates the volume control, the rest is useless ornamentation.) Other manufacturers should consider using online manuals. As a very small company, Aria is running way ahead of some much larger competitors with this innovation.

The 71 pound crate in which I received the WV5 was a brute to carry home but fully protected the preamp. Sure, you don't listen to the shipping crate but companies' packaging often speaks to the care they take in designing and manufacturing the product. If evaluated from the outside in, the crate speaks well of the product. Likewise, the appearance and finish of the product appear excellent.

The WBT 0210Ag connectors are somewhat large in diameter and a tight fit for my Cardas Golden Reference interconnects. I understand that these RCA jacks are the best available for sound but subject to quick wear on the plating. While these may sound great, they may penalize those inclined to compulsive A/B comparisons by exhibiting plating wear quickly.

As for the sound, it is too early for me to tell all that much. I will set the WV5 XL against my Aesthetix Io with two power supplies and Nagra PL-P to see which fits my listening priorities and system. While I hope to post some impressions here, I will give you early notice that my preferences are entirely my own and often not shared with those who listen to my rig. I do what pleases me and involves me in the music. These preferences make the "your mileage may vary" into "your mileage WILL vary." Of course, this does not stop me from bloviating on the website. It is, after all, the political season.

I leave the more exhaustive, highly valuable and more generally applicable evaluations to Jafox, who has been very helpful to all of us on Audiogon. Once he has a chance to break in and thoroughly check out some alternatives, I trust that he will share with us and we will all benefit.

Casaross, what's the word? I'm dying over here.