Rega Fono MM MK3 Phono Preamp Review

[Andreas007]

Yeh, it feels like plastic but the owner also told me it is aluminum.

Then why not correct it on the main page?

 

[Urib]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Rega Fono MM MK3 phono stage. It was kindly sent to me by a member and costs US $395. Despite its relatively high price, it only supports Moving Magnet cartridges.

I was disappointed in the plastic case and overall look:

View attachment 91495

Not much to see on the back either:
View attachment 91496

As you see, it uses an AC transformer which allows it to generate both positive and negative DC voltages it needs internally with ease. Because of this the power supply is not universal so if you are importing it, better make sure it is rated for your voltage or pick up your own 24 volt supply.

Rega Fono MM MK3 Measurements
As usual we start with our dashboard using 5 millivolt to simulate a moving magnet cartridge output:

View attachment 91497

SNIAD which is typically the relative sum of both distortion and noise tends to be noise limited in phono preamplifiers and such is the case. The rating places the Fono MM in the average category:

View attachment 91498

We can tease out just the distortion or just the noise:

View attachment 91499

As you see the distortion is quite good on the left (equivalent to 17 bit digital audio). Both are far better than anything the LP as a format can produce.

Most important in a phono state is faithful RIAA equalization to give us a flat response:

View attachment 91560

Nice to have a rumble filter but would have liked a more flat response above 20 Hz.

With respect overload (making pops and clicks sound worse than they have to), we get good bit of headroom:

View attachment 91501

Here is the Schiit Mani in comparison:

I should not that just about all the measurements match Rega specifications.

Conclusions
The Fono MM performance is fine. Nothing is broken. It is just that at $400 you are paying more for the brand than features and looks. I leave it up to you to decide if it is a good deal or not.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Had fair bit of harvest sitting for weeks on our porch waiting for us to do something about them. The peppers were bugging me especially since they were starting to get soft and develop some bad spots. So I thought I get them inside and cut and freeze them:

View attachment 91502

First year growing these long sweet peppers. A bit less flexible to use since you can't make stuffed peppers easily with them. Still, they taste great in stir-fry's and such.

Appreciate any kind donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Try to make the Hungarian Peper dish name LECHO. It's great. Look at Google for recepi.

 

[amirm]

Then why not correct it on the main page?

Good point. Added correction.

 

[amirm]

Try to make the Hungarian Peper dish name LECHO. It's great. Look at Google for recepi.

Thanks. Didn't know there were recipes just for this type of pepper!

 

[SIY]

The self-noise for a very good Moving Coil cartridge can be around 100dB down following the equations in appendix 5 of the 1980 National Audio/Radio Handbook. Excellent MM is more in the range of 70 or so dB which is fine, not a CD but better than most analog formats. The limiting factor is almost certainly the surface noise of the LP.

Like I said, LP isn't bad for the physics involved. Its fine to listen to if the stars align. If you're looking for consistent, reproducible, high-quality audio, vinyl certainly isn't where it's at. It can be an enjoyable, very high-fidelity experience or it can be far from it.

Can you give an example of an MC with those numbers? Since building my noise calculator some years back, I’ve not seen anything even close to that.

https://syclotron.com/riaa-noise-calculator/

 

[countbasey]

I have a parasound 3 jr. which i would like to see how it measures. shipping to amirm might cost a bit though. specs on their site say "Incredible S/N up to 94 dB and THD less than 0.02%"

 

[SegaCD]

Can you give an example of an MC with those numbers? Since building my noise calculator some years back, I’ve not seen anything even close to that.

https://syclotron.com/riaa-noise-calculator/

Whoops, was referencing an Ortophon MC Quintet Black S with a 7 ohm load but used a 3mV output when it's .3mV. Brings it down to 80dB with your calculator.

 

[SIY]

Whoops, was referencing an Ortophon MC Quintet Black S with a 7 ohm load but used a 3mV output when it's .3mV. Brings it down to 80dB with your calculator.

Yeah, 80 was about as good as I’ve seen, and that’s pretty exceptional.

 

[DSJR]

In the UK, this thing sells for £200, which is a far better value price I reckon and a huge shame that getting it 'over the pond' invites such a price hike. The Mani here keeps it's lower price but looking now it seems to have increased quite a bit in recent times as it was just over a hundred quid not that long ago I'm sure -

https://www.schiit.co.uk/mani

Since many MM cartridges have a gently rising response from 1kHz downwards, I wouldn't be too hard on the lightly tilted RIAA correction curve of the Fono in practical terms. Far more important in my experience is the overload margins and how well the phono stage copes with ticks and inevitable 'splatters' in much vinyl reproduction, as these sudden hf transients can be far higher than mean music levels. The 'effects' of vinyl noise can be more easily ignored if the phono stage isn't ringing or adding distortion to these ticks and plops - in my experience of course..

Anyway, sincere thanks for the review, accepting the ludicrous US price over the £200 price in its home market!

 

[JohnKay]

Yeh, it feels like plastic but the owner also told me it is aluminum.

It looks like Aluminium case but Plastic fascia (the standard Rega construction post 2008). I could be wrong but this is what this looks like.
I have had many Rega products for the past 10 years (I love the sound) and up to around 2008 they were made out of metal and felt like tanks. The Rega Elicit Mk2 I owned felt like it would last for ever. Then the Brio-r, Elicit-r came and they started using a shiny plastic fascia + plastic buttons. These scratch easily and are really cheap in my opinion. This unit looks similar to the latest Rega Brio which also uses an aluminium case + cheap shiny plastic fascia.

 

[TheMarshal]

A CD had 96 dB of dynamic range... there is no way an LP is even close to that.

That's very true, HOWEVER, in the past two decades, the engineers used heavy compression when mastering the songs - just to make them sound louder. Thus, killing the dynamic range. So theoretically, I am saying just theoretically, in such cases the vinyl can have more dynamic range than a CD. If you want to notice this, just listen to RHCP Californication as vinyl rip and the original CD master.

In my opinion, if a song sounds better on vinyl than on digital - it's just because the mastering on vinyl is better for that particular song.

Ultimately, we are in this hobby to enjoy music - not listening to our gear*.
* I lie, we all end up listening to our gear more than everything.

 

[Angsty]

In my opinion, if a song sounds better on vinyl than on digital - it's just because the mastering on vinyl is better for that particular song.

Amen to that. I’m no recording engineer; I don’t understand why the engineers don’t use the same mastering for both LPs and digital if the digital version will sound worse. I’d rather listen to a 44.1k conversion of a mastering lacquer than a compressed digitization made for low-res streaming.

 

[levimax]

Amen to that. I’m no recording engineer; I don’t understand why the engineers don’t use the same mastering for both LPs and digital if the digital version will sound worse.

There are several reasons for different mastering between CD's and Vinyl. Currently, with "loudness war mastering" now considered "normal", it is simply not physically possible to master an LP as loud as a CD... it won't play. For older recordings there can be a gap of several decades between the original LP mastering, done by a skilled engineer (using undocumented secrets) working with the artists and the CD mastering done with an old and potentially damaged master tape and no idea what the original mastering engineer did. On subsequent "remastering's", which need to sound "different" for marketing reasons, EQ changes are made and compression added pushing them further from the original recording. The results are not always bad but often they are. In general I like to hear "the original" for artistic and historical context but many don't care.

 

[Labjr]

Digital files are used for most vinyl mastering these days. They're likely additionally processed and eq'd for vinyl etc., but I see no advantage to buying newly released records over digital versions.

 

[levimax]

Digital files are used for most vinyl mastering these days. They're likely additionally processed and eq'd for vinyl etc., but I see no advantage to buying newly released records over digital versions.

In theory that would be correct and I never buy new LP's. Unfortunately however for many new releases such as Tom Petty's recent posthumous releases the vinyl is mastered for "audiophiles" i.e. less compression and different EQ as compared to the standard loud and compressed digital versions used for streaming and CD's. It is crazy that a 100 year old obsolete technology gets the "good SQ" and digital gets the "Standard loud SQ" but that's the world we live in. Hopefully the "good SQ" versions will be released digitally some day.... maybe "hi-res" digital. In an case if you want the "good SQ" you are going to have to pay up for the vinyl or a hi-res release.

 

[TheMarshal]

Digital files are used for most vinyl mastering these days. They're likely additionally processed and eq'd for vinyl etc., but I see no advantage to buying newly released records over digital versions.

Personally, for me, the fact that the tracks are digitally mastered and then transferred to vinyl doesn't change much. Everything breaks down to the mastering. Loudness War aside, it's highly likely for labels to put more effort into mastering for vinyl, as usually, audiophiles buy vinyl - and if an audiophile buys a recording that suffers from the loudness war they are not going to buy again. The same goes for SACD, many of the DSD files I had listened to do have slightly different mastering and more dynamic range. That's because they are products marketed for audiophiles - and you can't play around with compression as audiophiles would go mad!

However, I don't see a point in buying a record, or even an SACD if the normal CD version doesn't suffer from the loudness war. A typical example could be Diana Krall's songs, they sound perfect on Tidal.

That being said, I am going to continue both listening to vinyl and streaming from Tidal. Digital and Analog are complementary for me. When I want a critical listening session I do listen to digital, when I just want to open up a bottle of wine - and enjoy jazz, I am going to play a record. For me, both mediums are fun depending on my mood. Although Digital is superior in terms of sound quality - and nowadays with Topping, SMSL, and other chi-fi products, we can enjoy high-quality digital audio for less. It's the best bang for the buck.

Also, many people here don't like to understand that no matter how objective we are, for most of the time audio is a subjective thing for many people. If we enjoy a flat studio sound and hi-res streaming, that doesn't mean that we should label people who listen to vinyl on tube amps as crazy. It's better for all of us to talk, enjoy productive discussions - and enjoy in the music.

 

[TheMarshal]

In theory that would be correct and I never buy new LP's. Unfortunately however for many new releases such as Tom Petty's recent posthumous releases the vinyl is mastered for "audiophiles" i.e. less compression and different EQ as compared to the standard loud and compressed digital versions used for streaming and CD's. It is crazy that a 100 year old obsolete technology gets the "good SQ" and digital gets the "Standard loud SQ" but that's the world we live in. Hopefully the "good SQ" versions will be released digitally some day.... maybe "hi-res" digital. In an case if you want the "good SQ" you are going to have to pay up for the vinyl or a hi-res release.

Exactly - and then we have people who don't realize that and say "HI-RES is the way to go, you Tidal peasants." or "VINLY IS THE BEST, ANALOG SOUNDS BETTER!". It all breaks down to how well the song has been mastered.

 

[Labjr]

I think early SACD releases sounded better. Seems like they took the time to get it right. Some of the hi-res PCM releases are now heavily compressed. Even some of the same titles that were previously released, now have more compression. Makes absolutely no business sense.

 

[levimax]

I think early SACD releases sounded better. Seems like they took the time to get it right. Some of the hi-res PCM releases are now heavily compressed. Even some of the same titles that were previously released, now have more compression. Makes absolutely no business sense.

I guess from a business perspective they don't want to spend a bunch of money on remastering a different versions for limited production like SACD or hi-res downloads although sometimes they do. Unfortunately I have come to the conclusion that generalizations are not possible when it comes to "good mastering", every recording is on a case by case basis. Some times it is original vinyl, sometimes early CD's, sometimes audiophile SACD's, DVD-Audio, or hi-res, sometimes a remaster, and sometimes just the regular old CD / streaming version. Often it doesn't make much of any difference but for a lot of older music it does.

 

[TheMarshal]

I think early SACD releases sounded better. Seems like they took the time to get it right. Some of the hi-res PCM releases are now heavily compressed. Even some of the same titles that were previously released, now have more compression. Makes absolutely no business sense.

I have been told Mo-Fi's SACD releases are still good. Personally, I listened to early SACD rips that I found on torrent websites. They did sound better than the streaming versions. It's a lot of hustle to create a proper playback of DSD.

I guess from a business perspective they don't want to spend a bunch of money on remastering a different versions for limited production like SACD or hi-res downloads although sometimes they do. Unfortunately I have come to the conclusion that generalizations are not possible when it comes to "good mastering", every recording is on a case by case basis. Some times it is original vinyl, sometimes early CD's, sometimes audiophile SACD's, DVD-Audio, or hi-res, sometimes a remaster, and sometimes just the regular old CD / streaming version. Often it doesn't make much of any difference but for a lot of older music it does.

Yes, it all depends. In many cases, when they do is for the "audiophile music" (whatever audiophile music means). Agreed, I was talking about older music. However, remember, those old songs, especially by The Beatles have millions of releases - and we might be used to a different release and etc.

At the end of the day, Tidal sounds good to me. However, it is great to experiment with different files and formats.