Has anyone actually bought a Zesto Phono preamp?

Zesto is actually a chain of ice cream shops here in the Louisville area. In other areas also: "While some former franchisees continued to operate under different names, others retained the Zesto name, and they do so today independent of each other and without support from a governing franchise structure. Among the cities where locally owned Zestos currently operate include Evansville, Indiana, Seattle, Washington, Atlanta, Georgia, Columbia, South Carolina, and Omaha, Nebraska (where it operates across from Rosenblatt Stadium, former home of the College World Series).
The Zesto trademark is currently controlled by Zesto Inc., a Missouri corporation owned by Harold Brown, who operates the first known Zesto in Jefferson City, Missouri, and registered the mark in 1985. Brown's company grants exclusive rights to use the Zesto name by territory."

I am going to turn them in for trademark infringment! LOL

Yes, I listened to this phono pre at T.H.E. Las Vegas in January and was very impressed with the sound, build quality and price. Great value in a phono pre amp. It was played through TAD monitors; a very revealing speaker and I found it to have a fluid pace and musicality that was effortless sounding.

We used this phono preamp in our room at THE SHOW Las Vegas. The rest of the system was our own Electra-Fidelity A3-500 300B monoblocks and OTL preamp, Fritz Carbon 7 Speakers, Resolution Audio Cantata, and Denon DP-3000 turntable completely refurbished by Concert Fidelity. Cabling was by WyWires.

This was the first time I had an opportunity to listen to the Zesto unit at length, having previously heard it briefly at RMAF and THE SHOW Newport. IMO the unit, in addition to being well built and attractive, performs extremely well and for a tubed phono stage is extremely quiet. I would agree with Hifimaniac's comments on the sound and add that we played a number of different musical genres and the unit did not disappoint us.

Disclaimer: I am a reseller for Electra-Fidelity, Resolution Audio, WyWires, and the Concert Fidelity refurbished Denon DP-3000.

I own one and it is a great phono stage and IMO competes very effectively with anything in the $6K to $10K range. I also own the EAR 868 full function preamp with built in phono stage. I can say for sure that the Zesto outperforms the EAR internal phono stage in all the areas that are important to me including resolution, soundstage, transparency and lack of grain. This using the EAR's linestage feeding an EAR 534 and Marten Form speakers. I do know the designer and Zesto president George personally but I have no financial interest in the company. To clarify an earlier remark, the company is Zesto Audio and the model is the Andros PS-1. There is also a line stage preamp in prototype stage now which will make its debut at the Newport Beach, CA show.

Alexs or Clio09
How wall does this phono preamp do rock or blues? My 2 previous tube phono stages had extremely good decay which served natural instruments but did not have the attack that properly portrays electric instruments.