Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat sound, quality
Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2023
I bought this for my U-Turn Orbit Plus turntable, connecting to a Marantz SR5015 receiver. The Marantz has a built-in phono stage but I was curious about what an external dedicated phono pre-amp could do for the sound.
When I hooked it up, at first I was getting a really bad electrical buzz and thought I had a defective unit. I tried different inputs and cable combinations, and realized it was a pair of bad 1ft Audioquest cables running from the TT to the Rega. Great company, but the cables are probably about 25 years old (have been in storage for 15 years or more). So I guess cables do go bad (had some bad 15yo copper speaker wire recently as well).
When I hooked up a functioning set of RCA cables from the turntable to the Rega, the sound was clear and beautiful. What a relief.
I did not do extensive A/B testing the first night, as it was a little complicated to moved cables and inputs around. But first impressions with a few tracks including "Don't Panic" (first track on a Coldplay's "Parachutes" album) gave me the impression of slightly brighter and more active/spacious/ethereal mids and treble, possibly slightly tighter bass as well.
I tried A/B with the opening track on Sufjan Stevens' Illinoise but there's a little too much going on to have noticed easy differences right away.
I may do a little more A/B testing, but I was looking for at least "same or slight improvement" over quality of the Marantz built-in phono to justify the purchase. And I'm very pleased with the performance for the price so far.
I do notice a very slight electrical buzz coming through the speakers with the Marantz turned up high and a record not playing, but have to be within maybe a foot of the speaker to detect it. Not sure if this is lack of grounding wire on my TT or what, but it's not noticeable during playback.
Equipment used:
U-Turn Orbit Plus turntable w/ Ortofon 2M Red cartridge, acrylic platter
Marantz SR5015 AVR
Ascend Acoustics 340-SE speakers (circa 2009)
10' RCA cables to receiver (new from Amazon)
6' RCA video cables TT > Phono (older Phillips cables)
Listening to: Coldplay Parachutes, Sufjan Stevens Illinoise, King Krule, SZA, Wilco, Nina Simone, Tame Impala, Tash Sultana, etc.
