DYNAVECTOR P75 MkIII phono stage
I bought this from Ceritech Audio via ebay as an ex-dem piece of gear only to find when it arrived that it didn't work. Ceritech were everything you would want in a dealer and I got back a fully working unit.
Up to this unit I was using a Rothwell Headspace MC headamp into my Prima Luna preamp MM phono stage with a Denon DL103. I always thought that the built in Prima Luna phono stage was a bit of a bottleneck for the sound of my vinyl so decided to do something about it.
The P75 was set for low output MC at 100 Ohm loading and high gain and seemed to work perfectly. Now I have to take into account that the DL103 as yet is not properly run in, neither are the EL34's in the power amp and neither are the B&W CM8 S2's. So, a difficult review then. The result of a rather nice vinyl session last night then was quite a surprise. Pink Floyd 'The Endless River' followed by Pink Floyd 'The Division Bell'.
Straight away I am not going into bass, mid and treble stuff or tonality and stuff. What left me emotionally moved was the sheer clarity and reality of the sound I was hearing. Yeah OK so I got a tad blase about hearing Marco rabbit on about CD and vinyl sounding the same...! Well, now they do...! Yes yer clever shit...!! The sound of my vinyl really does now approach that of CD but somehow is still infinitely better. I just cannot believe the sheer reality of the sound. On the vinyl edition of Mr Scruff's 'Friendly Bacteria' the realism of some of the tracks especially 'Render Me' is mind blowing. The stereo stage between the speakers is very realistic but the stereo stage that was either side of my head is now nowhere near as obvious. It is there when it should be, it is just less obvious. The clarity of the sound is now extremely precise and cymbal sounds are truly amazing.
£650 brand new, is it worth it for a tiny grey box..?
Well that is always going to depend on your interpretation of value for money. The Rothwell headamp was £299 brand new and for that you have to have a first class MM phono stage. Putting this unit into my system has been the equivalent of changing cartridge. For me it was worth it but then I got the older MkIII for £450.