While this is an odd place for my first post on this forum I have actually been passively using it for years. This review was of particular interest to me as I have been this using this exact phono stage for almost 2 years now. The first thing I noticed and basically the main reason for my post is the power supply shown in one of your photos. I'm not 100% certain this is the correct PSU for this phono stage, and while it will certainly work fine with it I can't help but wonder how much of the 'average' results in your testing were due to the low power supply's output. For example my Six Acoustic York came with a Mean Well 18V PSU with current output of 830mA. This is why I was surprised to see that Triad power supply in the photos with only 200mA current output. Again I don't have the sufficient technical knowledge to know how important that will be but I kept seeing the lower power supply voltage being possibly responsible for clipping as well as low headroom mentioned throughout the review so I figured its worth to mention this. For the last 1 year I have upgraded my unit with a 18V 2A linear power supply unit which improved the performance even further for me, more on that below.
All that will follow will be purely subjective but I figured it will be worth to say it, as I can imagine how someone looking for a new phono preamp might stumble on this page and by looking at the test results conclude that this particular unit is not worth their time. I believe that to be very wrong, for several reasons. This unit is flat out the best phono stage I have ever listened to, and granted I have not compared it to so many phono stages but the ones I did compare against it weren't exactly so much out of its price range, well except one of them. Initially I started with the Schiit Mani, was happy with the overall sound for some time but no matter what I did its apparent noise (when nothing is playing) combined with how often it would just pick stray EMI from somewhere annoyed me more and more as time passed. I'm a mostly MM guy so I'm scarred to think how much noisier the Mani is with MC carts. Coming from always using the built in phono preamp of various integrated amps to this external one having so much noise was certainly making me wonder what is the point of investing in an external phono stage when its performance is objectively worse in the noise department. The Mani I had also came with an upgraded linear PSU by Swagman labs, nevertheless I was not convinced of its performance so it wasn't long after that I moved on to the Cambridge Audio Duo, thanks to amir's review on this website. All issues I had with the Mani were instantly resolved, the Duo in comparison is whisper quiet and I have never heard a single stray noise from it, let alone listened to a local radio station through my stereo system. The Mani let me do that more than a few times...
In terms of sound quality the Duo was certainly a bit more mature and balanced, I guess the word will be neutral. What it lacked for me though was the dynamics of the Mani, in that regard the Mani was way more explosive and quick when the recording demanded it. Nevertheless I stayed with the Duo and after some time went through some turntable and cartridge upgrades, with those the Duo's performance was elevated to the point where it sounded much better than the Mani. Eventually I sold the Mani and life was good. Several months later I had come across a fantastic deal for an ex-demo Audio Note tonearm with pure silver cabling attached to the arm with no possibility of using different phono leads. The new tonearm was performing great with my then Nagaoka MP-110 cartridge. The Nagaoka is a moving iron type of design and you probably all know that capacitance does not affect those as much as the typical moving magnet design. Eventually I wanted to upgrade to something that performs better in terms of general tracking, IGD and sibilance, the MP-110 is not the best for that with its elliptical stylus profile. The cartridge I went for in the end is the VM95SH by Audio Technica, fantastic MM for a very competitive price. Miles ahead of the MP-110 in many regards but that's irrelevant right now. What is important is how sensitive MM carts by AT are to the total capacitance load. Very sensitive that is. The max recommend capacitance for the majority of AT's MM carts tends to be 200pF, the same applies for the VM95 series. After some extensive research and speaking directly with a representative of Audio Note UK I was informed that the captive tonearm leads are with total capacitance of 196pF, quite a large figure for a 1m cable but nothing I could do about that. I even purchased a capacitance meter to test that for myself and sure enough the same value appeared on the screen. The Cambridge Audio Duo preamp has a default input capacitance of 100pF and offers no way to adjust that, in fact the majority of cheap and mid-fi phono preamps are exactly the same. I have even seen some phono preamps costing in the thousands that lack this feature, I'll never know although its probably because those are mostly aimed at MC users, there capacitance load is basically irrelevant. While the VM95SH worked fine with Duo phono preamp the sound signature wasn't what I was expecting, I knew it could be better from what all the other users of this particular cart were reporting. That is when I was truly amazed at the lack of phono stages on the market that let you tune the capacitance load all the way down to 0pF, there's a few options by Pro-Ject, Simaudio and Musical Fidelity but overall the majority of models available start from 100pF (or more) as a baseline and there's nothing you can do about it. I kept looking and looking until I eventually saw the news about this Six Acoustic York phono preamp being released in the future, by complete accident also. On paper it had everything I needed, adjustability for all parameters, small form factor and seemingly good measured performance. It took me sometime to decide to order a unit as it was still early days back then and the product had just entered the market. There were no reviews of it whatsoever, unlike now. In the end I decided to go for it as the price was the same as what I had payed for the CA Duo and the seller assured me if things didn't work out I can always return it. They even gave me a discount code for being one of their first customers out of the UK. The unit arrived to me in just a few days and it was a long weekend for me so I immediately set it up on my system Friday evening after work. From the first second of me turning it on and listening to the speakers up close I knew this would be a better phono stage than what I've had before, if only in terms of noise. There was none of it that is. The Mani had a very strong "swoosh" sound in the speakers when nothing was playing and my ears were close up to the tweeter, the Cambridge Duo is much better but with the York there's basically nothing to be heard. I have to turn up the volume way past any safe listening levels to hear noise. From then I started listening and I think that was the first time I truly heard what the VM95SH is capable of. Up until then I always thought it has a slightly dark character, at least it was so with the Duo. But with the York phono preamp it truly came alive. The dynamics were in a completely different league, the whole sound was just tons more cohesive and felt 'real'. Without a hint of it being too analytical, boring or overly enriched. That good type of neutrality in sound so many search for. From then its just history, I use that phono preamp every day and have yet to find a single drawback to what it does. Not a single type of LP, genre or song has ever not sounded perfectly rendered with it. And I do listen to a rather wide array of music. For me it combines all the good things from the Schiit Mani and the Cambridge Audio Duo without any of their shortcomings. It is also the first phono preamp that has let me listen to records in less than perfect condition (groove noise, pops, ticks etc.) without any issues, before that the various bits of surface noise were always too much in my face and I had started to become a bit too OCD about always getting perfect records (something that basically doesn't exist) and have been in numerous arguments with Discogs seller about what VG+ and NM condition truly mean. This was the other thing that surprised me when the review mentioned that ticks and pops will exaggerated due to the measured low headroom of the York phono stage. Quite the opposite in my experience, the situation was far worse with the Mani for eg. About a year ago I went to a local hi-fi dealer to listen to the Rega Aria phono stage, they had a second hand unit in stock for a very attractive price. I also brought in my York so I can compare their sound directly with the dealer's system. Admittedly I expected much more from the Aria, especially considering its price when brand new is several times more than what the York sells for. It certainly was somewhat better with bass and had a bit of warmth to the midrange that many might be attracted to but when it comes to the upper midrange and treble it felt very closed in and and nowhere near as clear or detailed as the York. The decay of cymbal crashes just wasn't up to the same level that I was expecting. It was a rather surprising experience and overall the dealer agreed with my impressions. Since then I haven't really felt the need to look for more phono stages to upgrade. I might try out a Simaudio Moon 110LP
It's strange to look at a chart for SINAD placing my favourite phono stage towards the end when the Schiit Mani gets to be in 5th place, particularly when for my case they weren't even close to each other. I would pick the York 10/10 times over the Mani even in a blind A/B test. I don't know how much, if at all the measured performance of the York phono stage was affected by the low power supply it came with. All I wanted to say to anyone considering trying out the York in their system and stumbling on this review is definitely go for it. Put all the measured performance aside and give it the benefit of the doubt. I sure am glad I gave it a chance. Even if it measured with 40db SINAD I would still use it every day if it continues to sound as glorious as it does.
