I'm nearing completion of my my most recent project - the Paradise moving coil phono stage. This has been a joint collaboration between the folks at DIY Audio (forum) who designed it (and the power supply), Simon (sq225917) who spent hours sourcing parts, selecting components and building up the circuit boards (beautifully too), Andrew (flatpopely) who supplied the cases and me, who put it all together .

In my case (no pun), this phono stage is entirely mono-block built, even down to the power supplies and consists of four Naim 'shoe-box' cases - so it's not for those wanting a minimalist system. Simon built up the boards to be within 1% tolerance (some critical sections are better than 1% I believe). Cartridge loading can be adjusted by inserting capacitor and resistor combinations in to sockets provided on the circuit board (no soldering required). The boards are mounted on acrylic chassis' and sandwiched between neoprene washers. The input sockets are 50ohm BNC and the output sockets are Eichmann copper (which match the cables used).

This design is an all out assault on the state of the art with regard to amplifying the output of a low output moving coil cartridge. I first heard it when Simon built one for himself. As is the norm, he subsequently loaned his stage to me; I was expecting to be rather underwhelmed - but I was not. In fact, after two listening sessions I decided I couldn't live without one and so this project began.

How does it sound? It sounds remarkable is how it sounds! It sounds like you have had a whole amplifier upgrade. It makes my old stage sound quite compressed, vague and soft in the bass. The ability to separate out strands of the music and present them as a coherent rhythmic whole is the best I have ever heard - as a result, timing is outstanding. Detail retrieval is astonishing, but it isn't thrust at you in a 'look at me' sort of way. It could never be described as warm and euphonic, but neither is at all hard or have any transistor 'glare'. Vocal communication is outstanding and the bass is simply Stygian in depth, power and definition - dynamic range is truly amazing!