Phono Amplifier Review Index

[welwynnick]

A few things were niggling me in this forum, and I thought I might be able to help.

Some of the reviews of phono amps aren't listed in this forum - they're in the Amplifiers Forum instead - the next level up.

That means it's easy to overlook some of the reviews.

Similarly, some of the reviews aren't in the Review Index, so it's more difficult to search for them.

Also, MC - only phono amps seem to be a separate case, and get missed out.

Finally, the phono amp league table is for MM tests, so you can't see how amps with MC inputs fare, and it's difficult to make comparisons.

Therefore I bit the bullet and compiled a spreadsheet of phono amps tests. I brought them all into one place, and added results for MC tests.

For my own curiosity, I also added the gain to the amp SINAD to produce a total that's a sort of figure of merit. More gain typically equals more noise, and I was keen to see which amps were more successful at fighting that compromise. I think it's the mark of a good amp that the gain + SINAD is around120dB.

There are lots of games to play once it's in Excel, and as you might expect, the average MM gain is about 40dB, and the average MC gain is about 60dB.

I changed a few of the SINAD figures from the review index, in bold, as they referred to the ADC or DAC or line level tests.

Enjoy, Nick

Brand	Model	Price USD	SINAD	GAIN	TOTAL	SINAD	GAIN	TOTAL	Rec'd	Review Date	Review Link
			MM	MM	MM	MC	MC	MC
Classic Audio	MC Pro	$850			0​	73​	69​	142​	Yes	8/13/23	Review Link
ifi	Zen Air	£99	69​	40​	109​	66​	64​	130​	Yes	27/06/22	Review Link
eXemplar Audio	Exception Phono	$6,950	64​	43​	107​	54​	73​	127​	No	3/25/19	Review Link
Pro-Ject	Phono Box DS3 B	£799	78​	46​	124​	59​	66​	125​	Yes	28/01/24	Review Link
SOTA	Pyxi	$300	80​	46​	126​	65​	59​	124​	Yes	5/27/23	Review Link
Cambridge Audio	Alva Duo	$300	84​	39​	123​	63​	60​	123​	Yes	7/24/23	Review Link
Schiit	Skoll	$399	81​	41​	122​	64​	59​	123​	Yes	10/14/23	Review Link
Fosi	Audio Box X5	$110	86​	38​	124​	65​	57​	122​	Yes	12/01/25	Review Link
Lehmannaudio	Decade Phono Stage	£2,099	79​	45​	124​	66​	56​	122​	Yes	21/02/24	Review Link
NAD	PP 2e	£219	64​	37​	101​	62​	59​	121​	No	14/01/24	Review Link
Pro-Ject	Phono Box DC	£129	79​	40​	112​	58​	58​	116​	Yes	19/08/24	Review Link
Parasound	Zphono	$200	76​	47​	123​	56​	59​	115​	Yes	09/08/20	Review Link
ART Pro Audio	Precision Phono Pre	$81	78​	34​	112​	60​	52​	112​	Yes	6/13/22	Review Link
PS Audio	Stellar	$2,499	65​	44​	109​	51​	61​	112​	Yes	9/24/21	Review Link
Vincent	PHO-8	$250	73​	40​	113​	51​	58​	109​	No	3/25/20	Review Link
Graham Slee	Reflex C	$900			0​	59​	50​	109​	No	01/09/21	Review Link
Six Acoustics	York	$437	67​	40​	107​	48​	60​	108​	No	04/12/22	Review Link
Sutherland	KC Vibe MK2	£999	85​	45​	130​			0​	Yes	29/09/22	Review Link
Cambridge Audio	Alva Solo	$180	86​	39​	125​			0​	No	11/01/19	Review Link
Schiit	Mani 2	$149	81​	44​	125​			0​	Yes	2/23/22	Review Link
Emotiva Audio	XPS-1	$200	82​	42​	124​			0​	Yes	5/16/19	Review Link
Musical Fidelity	MX-VYNL	$1,000	79​	42​	121​			0​	Yes	06/07/19	Review Link
Pro-Ject	Phono Box DS2 USB	$600	80​	40​	120​			0​	Yes	07/12/20	Review Link
Rega	Fono Mk3	$400	78​	41​	119​			0​	No	11/04/20	Review Link
U-Turn Audio	Pluto 2	$99	78​	40​	118​			0​	Yes	6/23/21	Review Link
Schiit	Mani	$130	74​	43​	117​			0​	Yes	07/11/19	Review Link
Pro-Ject	Phono Box MM	$89	76​	40​	116​			0​	No	07/08/23	Review Link
U-Turn Audio	Pluto	$100	80​	36​	116​			0​	No	06/10/18	Review Link
Mofi	StudioPhono Stage	£349	74​	41​	115​			0​	No	21/04/24	Review Link
Rek O Kut Ultra	Ultra	$159	76​	39​	115​			0​	No	5/17/22	Review Link
Hagerman Audio Labs	Bugle3	$199	74​	40​	114​			0​	N/A	3/18/23	Review Link
Parks Audio	Puffin	$400	73​	40​	113​			0​	Yes	1/25/21	Review Link
Musical Surroundings	Nova 3	$1,500	69​	43​	112​			0​	N/A	12/29/20	Review Link
Parasound	200 Pre	$895	69​	43​	112​			0​	N/A	09/11/21	Review Link
Rane	PS1	$50	75​	36​	111​			0​	No	5/16/19	Review Link
Pro-Ject	Optical Box E Phono	$200	76​	34​	110​			0​	No	12/13/20	Review Link
Pro-Ject	Tube Box S2	$400	69​	40​	109​			0​	No	4/26/20	Review Link
Graham Slee	Gram Amp 2 Comm'tr	$299	69​	39​	108​			0​	No	04/11/22	Review Link
Darlington Labs	MM-5	$199	64​	41​	105​			0​	No	7/24/21	Review Link
ART Pro Audio	USB Phono Plus	$99.99	59​	45​	104​			0​	No	08/03/23	Review Link
ifi	Zen Phono	£199	67​	37​	104​			0​	Yes	26/06/22	Review Link
Hagerman Audio Labs	Bugle2	$150	61​	40​	101​			0​	No	8/14/20	Review Link
Superphon	Revelation Preamp	£349	59​	38​	97​			0​	Yes	16/05/24	Review Link
NAD	PP 4	$229	54​	42​	96​			0​	No	04/06/21	Review Link
Realistic	42-2101A	$20	58​	38​	96​			0​	No	1/22/21	Review Link
Chord Electronics	Huei	$1,500	44​	49​	93​			0​	No	11/07/20	Review Link
Lounge Audio	LCR Mk3	$300	53​	40​	93​			0​	No	04/07/19	Review Link
Rolls	VP29	$50	49​	41​	90​			0​	No	1/22/21	Review Link
Pyle Audio	Pro PP444	$13	48​	35​	83​			0​	No	10/15/19	Review Link
Furutech	Alpha Des Labs GT40	$525	40​	41​	81​			0​	No	10/05/19	Review Link
Marantz	AV10	£7,000	80​	35​	115​				Yes	01/12/23	Review Link

 

[Michael Fidler]

First reply, first entry on the table

Thanks for this - an excellent reference. Good idea combining gain and SINAD together.

 

[RandomEar]

@welwynnick Small thing I noticed: The format of the review dates seems to be mixed US and non-US style.

I've loaded the table into MATLAB/Octave and generated some plots. Let's begin with SINAD for MM and MC:

We can see that in case of MM preamps (and disregarding differences in gain), paying more than roughly 100 $ doesn't give you a higher SINAD anymore. It might give you more headroom, better rumble filtering and other improvements, though. For MC preamps, about 120 $ gets you the second best SINAD tested to date, but there is still quite a gap to the best. To reach the top, you need to go to 850 $.

For preamps which offer both, MM and MC, we can see how much their SINADs correlate:

Answer: Somewhat

Depending on how you look at the data, there are at least two significant outliers with SINAD (MM) < 70 but SINAD (MC) > 60: ifi Zen Air and NAD PP 2e. Or you could single out the Six Acoustics York with 67/48 dB and the Vincent PHO-8 with 73/51 dB in MM/MC mode.

 

[RandomEar]

Since the plots above do not consider the differences in gain between preamps, I've had a look at this again. Instead of plotting the "Total" (Total(i) = SINAD(i) + Gain(i)), I decided to normalize SINAD to the average gain of all preamps tested per category (MM or MC):

Normalized_SINAD(i) = SINAD(i) + Gain(i) - mean(All Gains)

The resulting changes for each device and therefore the resulting order/ranking should be identical to the one using "Total", but the numbers are a little more intuitive. The graph now looks like this:

There's some significant changes, with - ironically - the cheapest and the most expensive devices performing quite a bit worse now. To better visualize the changes, here's a quick animation:

 

[Amused]

The Pro-Ject Phono Box DC entry has a typo. The MM total should be 119, not 112 (79 + 40 = 119).
Neat spreadsheet!

 

[welwynnick]

The Pro-Ject Phono Box DC entry has a typo. The MM total should be 119, not 112 (79 + 40 = 119).
Neat spreadsheet!

Well spotted. There was a formula out of place.