Graham Slee Gram Amp 2 Communicator Review (Phono Preamp)

[SmackDaddies]

What did it do? Instead of 45 RPM, it plays at 50???

oh my god

Thank you for a humorous start to a Monday

 

[Garrincha]

Ah, WhatHifi... Along with Lehmann, Graham Slee products often got shining reviews from them. I used to own the Novo headphone amp

Yes, WhatHifi is really a ridiculous and despicable site. But Lehmann products are probably good in spite of that. As far as I know, ASR never reviewed one, but I supposed they would measure fine, I would be curious to see that.

 

[Labjr]

About 15years ago, I commented on DIYAudio forum about the price of a Graham Slee phono preamp. I don't remember the model but it was basically two op-amp IC's and a handful of resistors etc. on a single-sided PCB which looked home-made. The BOM couldn't have been $30. However, the price was like $1,200 USD.

Graham Slee wouldn't comment on DIY Audio but sent someone to dare me to come to their forum so they could attack me.

 

[Kremmen]

What Hi-fi is to be treated with less seriousness than The Beano. In my estimation it's a farcical website and publication aimed at exploiting the uninitiated. Their 'reviews' contain little more information than I can find on the average crisp packet and they are usually absolute dreck.

 

[DSJR]

What Hi-fi is to be treated with less seriousness than The Beano. In my estimation it's a farcical website and publication aimed at exploiting the uninitiated. Their 'reviews' contain little more information than I can find on the average crisp packet and they are usually absolute dreck.

In the UK, you at least get various nutritional info and pack weight on a crisp packet.

 

[AudioSceptic]

In the UK, you at least get various nutritional info and pack weight on a crisp packet.

Indeed. Pure fiction is not allowed!

 

[brandall10]

It's fun seeing legacy brand heavyweights (in the head-fi community) get torn to shreds.

 

[kencreten]

I think it represents cheap modern electronics that don't perform all that well - and are too expensive. But maybe that's just me. Thanks for the great review. But, who knows, maybe it has the brilliance of diamonds, with a whiff of freshly cut cedar audio overtones? heheh

 

[norcalscott]

I voted this as poor as there are quite a few other, less expensive options out there, like this one from U-Turn ($99!) and the mentioned Cambridge solution in this thread. $300 for this, even though performance is not terrible, is just a rip-off.

 

[DSJR]

I think it's another item that represents 'good enough for the punter' rather than 'good!' There's a certain laziness that seems to have crept in in these still all too subjectivist days and sadly for me, a lot of UK designed and internationally sold gear is like this - or if it's really good, it sells for insane money which is mostly profit even after all the manufacturing and logistical expenses are taken out - in my opinion of course...

 

[Jim Shaw]

<chuckle> SOTA circa 1965. But back then, it would be done with several glowing bottles, thus increasing Earth's entropy while chasing fidelity with a crutch and a butterfly net. It can't even do M/C signal levels.

Don't know about you, but when I graduated to moving coil cartridges from moving magnet units, I never once found a reason to look back.

 

[Russ_L]

Just checked the Graham Slee website. The Communicator is 188 pounds (about $245) shipped to the states. A little better but nothing to get excited about. I have a Graham Slee Accession for a few years. An excellent sounding MM phono stage.

 

[TheBatsEar]

Voted as not terrible. While the build seems cheap, and the measurements not perfect, it would still do it's job for most.
Maybe used for 50 or 100€ would get a "Fine" rating.

 

[DrZingo]

What is brilliant timing? Must be product release market timing?

It seems to be a phrase that the magazine has used for years in their reviews of all kinds of audio equipment. I have no idea what it means. Neither, I suspect, have they.

 

[Anthony101]

Here we have something that we can use to see if the WhatHIFI rating system is a good one.

The data collected was a study done on the WhatHIFI rating system on the 3rd of 2019 until recently from ninety data samples. We can see that the system is flawed as 74.44% of the products are on the two possible gradable ratings four stars and five stars. IMO it is a useless performance rating system.

 

[LTig]

The frequency response suggests a basic simple text book RIAA preamp circuit as you can find in many data sheets of audio op amps. They forgot to compensate for the fact that a non inverting single stage amplifier cannot amplify less than 0 dB (not before its natural open loop gain reaches 0 dB which is in the MHz range). US$ 300 is a rip off or this.

 

[Hugo9000]

WutHiFi doesn't bother to review anything that wouldn't earn more than one star, in general they stick to products that are likely (word of mouth, past excellence, benefit of the doubt, informal audition, etc. haha) to earn a minimum of 3 stars, so they can help their readers avoid bothering with the worst dreck. Isn't this in general what magazine staff often claim in order to explain why there are almost no 'bad' reviews of products? This is doubly self-serving on their part, of course. On the one hand, they use this to dismiss any claim that their rating is 'purchased' and on the other hand, there is an implication that if they haven't reviewed a product or a brand, it may be because it's such garbage they didn't waste the time on it. So that's a not-too-subtle hint to manufacturers that perhaps they'd better send their gear to the magazine for payola extended loan review. Otherwise, it's possible that a reader may conclude that a brand/model wasn't reviewed in print for reasons of not meeting the minimum standards of the magazine staff, rather than simply not getting a review unit in. LOL

 

[Tks]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Graham Slee Gram Amp 2 Communicator phono stage. It costs US $299.


So no, there is no reason from performance point of view to recommend Graham Slee Gram Amp 2 Communicator. I recommend a new revision and while they are at it, please shorten the darn name!

I dare you take a look at names for computer monitors..

Btw does anyone have any exposure to naming schemes for products in the general market of.. well.. any product actually?

It's not really much of an issue in audio, but other electronics (like the aforementioned monitors), it just seems like they're naming products in some sort of transposable abbreviations of product SKU names. So bad.. Are people in these companies truly thinking this serves them best?

 

[amirm]

Btw does anyone have any exposure to naming schemes for products in the general market of.. well.. any product actually?

I have some. At Sony America they used a naming agency. They would pick names that always sounded Italian (ending in ia). I see that as a very common scheme. Previa, etc.,

At Microsoft, marketing would come up with names. Then execs like Bill Gates would either accept it, or complain about it. In latter cases, they were either ignored, or followed. For a while, they was an edict that you couldn't name anything new. Everything had to use the existing brand of Windows or Office. So a lot of stuff became Windows this and that (Windows Mobile, Windows Media Player, etc.). There was no consistency over the years I was there.

 

[amirm]

Oh another common strategy is to run with code name of products which was invented by engineers or program managers. This routinely ran into trademark issues so not practiced as much.