ROLLS VP29 Review (phono stage)

[Sir Sanders Zingmore]

The ultra cheap Pyle sells even better....3800+ reviews...

And it has this awesome graph that I don't understand...

if only Schiit made a product called "pyle"… how much fun would we have..

 

[watchnerd]

if only Schiit made a product called "pyle"… how much fun would we have..

Well, they did make the Fulla Schiit.

 

[The Jniac]

if only Schiit made a product called "pyle"… how much fun would we have..

They are probably going to eventually make the Schiit Thing.

 

[scrubb]

And it has this awesome graph that I don't understand...

It’s clearly showing how it turns the digital signal from your record into analog signal.

 

[watchnerd]

It’s clearly showing how it turns the digital signal from your record into analog signal.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that.

 

[watchnerd]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the ROLLS VP29 budget phono preamplifier. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $49 on Amazon including Prime shipping.

I must say, very clever use of color and style for a budget case and price:

View attachment 107700

As you see, the unit is made in USA which is a rarity at this price.

Power naturally comes externally in the form of a DC 12 volt power supply:

View attachment 107701

There is a TRS connector on the left which we don't usually see. No wonder a lot of DJs seem to be using it based on Amazon reviews I read. Speaking of which, there are 551 reviews with average of 4.5 stars!

ROLLS VP29 Measurements
Let's see how the VP29 does on our usual dashboard made for moving magnet cartridges:

View attachment 107702

OK, this is puzzling. The FFT shows very little mains noise and distortion is down to -90 dB. So why on earth is our SINAD down to just 49 dB??? Something is going on there that we can't see. As you see at the bottom of display, I am using the "AC>10 Hz" filter in my audio analyzer. If we defeat that and go down to DC, this is what our FFT looks like:

View attachment 107703

As you see, it shoots way up indicating DC offset. I took a snapshot of the DC as overlaid in the graph. The value was constantly changing though and was quite unstable. This is terrible as if your amplifier is DC coupled, you risk amplifying that and feeding it to your speaker and cooking its voice coil. It could also generate audible noise.

Putting in a 20 Hz filter in my analyzer ignores that and SINAD value is as expected then:
View attachment 107704

This looks reasonable -- even good -- but let's look at frequency response:

View attachment 107705

What on earth is this? The RIAA filter is completely screwed up here. As a result the tonality is going to be bright with so much attenuation of bass. At this point, I did not see a point in continuing.

Conclusions
If there was a definition of a broken phono stage, the VP29 is it. Could it be a broken sample? Sure. At this price anything is possible. But we have two channels both doing the same thing. The odds of both being miss-wired becomes quite low. How people find this a good preamp, I don't know.

Needless to say, I can't recommend the ROLLS VP29 phono stage. There are budget phono preamps that are not broken. A shame as it looked nice and would have been nice to have a US made product to recommend.

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

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Do we know the pF loading on this?

I gather it's not selectable, but surely they must have selected some nominal value....

EDIT:

NVM. Who cares what the cap loading is if it can't do RIAA correctly?

 

[AudioSceptic]

Yep, very few people went to watch Evil Knievel in order to see him make the jump.

That's a depressing view of humanity, but it might just be correct.

 

[BDWoody]

Not sure why time was spent to test this unit. Is it a unit that sell much?

So there are fewer sad stories like this to tell.

I have one of these. Wanted to use it in the living room to put a turntable there to play into our soundbar. Just for fun sometimes, not for critical listening or anything serious. It had significant hum and all sorts of problems. I dropped it in a bag...

Hosanna, Hallelujah!!!

For a review that's a waste of time, you seem to be keeping pretty close track of it.

 

[hotrabbitsoup]

Thanks for this review! This brings back memories. I've seen a few of these out in the wild. Ive heard them in friends stereos and rehearsal studio spaces from way back in the day. Any vinyl played through them always sounded a little weak in the bass and now I see why. But, they are the great cheapo type of electronic goodies that helped underground musicians and other sound makers I know to push through in the vinyl dark years when the mighty CD ruled the world.

 

[beagleman]

So which is actually better, that 40 year old Realistic, or this?

Being serious, I kinda feel like the Realistic is somewhat better from what I see

 

[mhardy6647]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that.

You were not (the only one).

 

[DWPress]

I have one of these somewhere still. Bought it after I sold my NAD 1300 preamp, went to active crossovers and was without a phono stage. For a few months I just assumed I'd grown accustomed to clean digital when I got nostalgic and played some records. I replaced it with a Schiit Mani shortly after.

I've still grown too accustomed to clean digital I guess.

 

[Vnowinski]

I've got an original Hagerman Bugle somewhere, perhaps I should send it in based on that old article! Though it has gone through several iterations since, I think it is primarily to allow users to tweak the loading...

 

[amirm]

I've got an original Hagerman Bugle somewhere, perhaps I should send it in based on that old article! Though it has gone through several iterations since, I think it is primarily to allow users to tweak the loading...

I measured V2 version: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...s/hagerman-bugle2-diy-kit-phono-preamp.15325/

I thought I had also post the original version as a local member had it but now I don't see it.

 

[Vnowinski]

I measured V2 version: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...s/hagerman-bugle2-diy-kit-phono-preamp.15325/

I thought I had also post the original version as a local member had it but now I don't see it.

Missed that one!

 

[P_M]

Seeing the (not so) redoubtable Rolls phono preamp making an appearance has jogged a memory!
Many, many years ago, audioXpress published a review of a bevy of inexpensive phono preamps.
The article was long available on the aX website, but eventually disappeared (perhaps due to its age). Fortunately, it's still out there to be had, thanks to archive.org and the Wayback Machine.

https://web.archive.org/web/2006101...dioxpress.com/reviews/media/403hansen2090.pdf

Quite shocking to see the Zin (and RIAA) all over the place.

@amirm
are you able to measure Zin and Cin on phono preamps ? These two specs have a big impact on the frequency response of the preamp so would be good to know what the actual value is as compared to the spec.

 

[tomchr]

A varying DC offset is normal in a high-gain stage, such as a RIAA stage. It could just be 1/f noise. That said, a quick glance at the schematic reveals that the designer made no attempt to reduce the offset.

The RIAA stage is AC coupled, so I wonder where that DC is coming from.

Tom

 

[restorer-john]

A varying DC offset is normal in a high-gain stage, such as a RIAA stage. It could just be 1/f noise. That said, a quick glance at the schematic reveals that the designer made no attempt to reduce the offset.

The RIAA stage is AC coupled, so I wonder where that DC is coming from.

Decent RIAA stages have no DC offset as they use a servo. Others trim the DC offset before handing the signal to the next stage. Capacitor coupled stages such as this, need a resistor to "bleed" the offset on the cap to half rail (this is a single rail design). This RIAA stage has no resistor, so the output was wandering due to the AP's 200K differential input not referenced to the same ground as the preamp.

 

[tomchr]

You'll get some offset even with a DC servo. After all, your DC servo has its own offset. A DC servo can also impact the THD performance at the bottom end of the audio band. That said, even a poorly designed servo would likely be an improvement in this RIAA stage.

Good call on the dangling capacitors. I don't like doing that even in designs with split supplies.

Tom

 

[muskrat]

The Music Hall Mini has the same board, even says rolls on it. It costs twice as much. Reviewer couldn't get rid of hum so he opened it up. Ground screw was grounded to the case which was grounded to the board by a screw that wasnt in contact with the pad as it was too small. Also soldering was sloppy and leads weren't trimmed. Sad.