Review of REGA ARIA MM/MC Phonostage
I have spent the last 5 days running-in a REGA ARIA MM/MC Phonostage. On opening the box you are presented with a aluminium box roughly the same size as the Cyrus range of HiFi equipment, often refered to as shoeboxes. The Phonostage has it's own built-in power supply thus avoiding those horrible (IMO) SMPS wall warts. The front facia has a black glossy panel with two silver coloured buttons, one for power and the other for switching between MM and MC. The back panel has RCA inputs for both types of cartridge as well as an earth tag. The output sockets are also RCA. A full set of dip switches to select for type of cartridge and gain. Finally a IEC socket for mains power.
On spinning up a 180Grm copy of the Doors "LA Woman" and lowering the stylus on Riders On The Storm one is immediately presented with a wide sound stage and Ray Manzarek's organ intro after the weather effects quickly followed by John Densmore's drum and cymbals making the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Jim Morrison comes in forward and centre of the speakers, you can almost hear him breathing into the microphone. Bass is dynamic and full with the mid-range and top end showing off the organ and guitar. The Phonostage makes the best of this simply recorded album.
The next album up is the Analogue Productions 45RPM pressing of "Dusty In Memphis" with the stylus lowered onto the definitive version of Son Of A Preacher Man the Phonostage brings Dusty out into the room with vocals clear and breathy. Once again the bass which is a big feature of this track is presented fast and without boom.
While I appreciate that I am describing the sum total of the system, the Phonostage in no way is holding things back. I always felt that the Dino/Dino+ combination gave very good account of itself! the REGA is in a totally different league. The sound is fast and dynamic with a sweet top end which makes you want to listen to more and more albums. Which I'm doing. I now have the second album of Wheels of Fire spinning. I had always felt that was a slightly messy live recording but now I can hear Ginger Bakers drum strokes with amazing clarity with Clapton's guitar singing and Jack Bruce's bass lines keeping the whole thing chugging along........marvellous.
This is my first attempt at doing a review of a piece of equipment and appreciate that it is not as good as others can manage on this forum but I can still highly recommend the Phonostage as exceptional value for the £798 asked.
Equipment used as per my signature.
Clive
Last edited by Clive197; 22-01-2014 at 15:52.
Reason: Spelling
SOURCE:OPPO UDP-205 BluRay, SkyQ, Technics SL1210M5G/HexMat Eclipse/MN Bearing/Origin Live Gravity One puck/Isonoes with Boots/Jelco TK-850S Tonearm/Hana Umami Blue, PS Audio Stellar Phonostage. I also have an AT-OC9XSH as a spare cartridge.
AMPLIFIER: Bryston BR-20 Pre/DAC/Streamer & Bryston 4B3 Power Amplifier
SPEAKERS: Spendor D7 on Iso-Acoustics Gaia III’s
HEADPHONES: OPPO PM-1 with Atlas Zeno cable, B&W Pi7 S2 and B&W C5 v2.
CABLES: Analogue: Speaker Atlas Mavros Grun. Interconnect - Atlas Mavros XLR x3, MCRU Silver Tonearm cable
Digital:Audioquest Carbon Ethernet x 4, Audioquest Carbon digital, English Electric 8Switch, Chord Optichord, Atlas Optical.
Mains: PS Audio Perfectwave AC-05 x 5, Isol-8 Powerline Extreme with Quantum Science yellow fuse on input cable, Sounds Fantastic 6way Mains Blocks.
STORAGE: Synology DS216J NAS with 2 x 3Tb WD Red hard-drives. Samsung 500Gb SSD.
TV LG55B7 OLED