The
CD reissues of Segovia's old Decca recordings
suck: thin, bright and all the ambiance of a
telephone booth. In contrast, the original Decca
LPs sound wonderful. So, you've got an itch to
play your Segovia LPs but your receiver lacks a
phono stage. Mass-market manufacturers of stereo
preamplifiers and receivers often omit the phono
input, reasoning that it's a costly extra people
don't need. However, turntables and LPs are more
popular than they've been in years, yet harder
to mate to new stereo equipment. Fortunately,
you can buy an outboard phono preamp to process
the low-level signal from a turntable and feed
it to your main preamp or receiver. Here is a
tale of three budget phono preamps I
auditioned.
Appearance
& Construction
Musical
Fidelity X-LP
The British-made
X-LP ($250) is one strange looking phono stage.
It resembles a device of mass destruction from a
James Bond movie: cylindrical shape, thick
brushed aluminum faceplate, red indicator light,
semi-gloss black chassis, heavy duty rolled
steel body and integral cradle/stand (if you
value your freedom, don't take this thing
through airport security). I especially like the
two Allen wrench sockets on the faceplate. She
weights the same as your average brick and is
the size of a large can of Boston Baked Beans.
The fit and finish are excellent. The X-LP is by
far the best looking, built and sounding of the
three budget phono stages I used during the past
2 months (i.e., the Creek OBH-8 and NAD PP-1).
With its hospital-grade look it ain't your
father's little black box.
Did I mention
the X-LP is sturdy? You could stand on it
without fear of damage. Furthermore, you can
bring on your tightest RCA interconnects, the
X-LP's back panel will not bend no matter what.
The 2 pairs of RCA inputs are gold plated and
may be switched between the appropriate
sensitivity for a moving coil or moving magnet
cartridge. She sports a ground terminal but,
unfortunately, lacks a power switch. You'll have
to buy the look-alike X-PSU power supply ($200)
if you want a power switch (the X-PSU should
enhance the sound as well).
NAD
PP-1
The PP-1 ($125)
is a small black metal box (1-1/2 inches high by
5-1/4 wide by 2-3/4 deep) with a green LED on
the faceplate. The input sensitivity is
appropriate only for a moving-magnet or high
output moving coil phono cartridge. There is no
power switch or ground. She sports a wallwart/DC
input, a one foot shielded cable with
gold-plated RCA connectors and gold plated RCA
inputs. My first impression of this Chinese-made
NAD is that it is cheap looking. Fortunately,
it's so small you can easily hide it.
Creek
OBH-8
The OBH-8 ($200)
is a black metal box, a little larger than the
NAD, and features a pushbutton power switch and
green LED on the faceplate. The input
sensitivity is appropriate only for a
moving-magnet or high output moving coil phono
cartridge. A ground screw, 24v input and female
RCA I/O are provided on the back. Plain but
reasonably good looking. Unfortunately, she also
sports a wallwart power supply (more on that
later).
Power
Supply
There is one
thing all three phono stages share: wallwart,
wallwart, a cheap little made-in-China wallwart.
However, as much as I despise wallwarts, as
least the X-LP's wallwart does its job well,
i.e., it supplies power and nothing else to the
X-LP. In contrast, the PP-1 and OBH-8 sport
wallwarts that are excellent radio receivers
and, subsequently, will propel inner city
dwellers straight into RFI hell. Thank you
Musical Fidelity for spending a little more time
and money for shielding and/or filter circuits
to keep that classic rock station and hum out of
my phono stage!!!
Sound
Quality
Right out of the
box, the X-LP sounded a little bright and
irritating. It took a week of large doses of
daily vinyl for the X-LP to "break-in," i.e.,
develop a balanced tone and full sound stage.
The Creek seemed to burn-in only after a few
days. Amazingly, the NAD didn't need any burn in
as it sounded the same all the time (maybe my
dealer sold me a demo or return as the box
looked beat).
Although both
the NAD and Creek sound decent, the X-LP is far
better. First, it is RFI FREE!!! This is a big
deal as my 31st floor condo is less than 2
blocks away from a transmitting tower. I live
with a low hum and classic rock in my
telephones, guitar amps and cheap unshielded
stereo components.
The X-LP's main
attributes are its transparency, detail,
smoothness and balanced sound. I hardly noticed
that it was there, it merely reproduced the
source with clarity and truth. I listened to it
for hours without fatigue, unlike a certain Sony
CD player I owned.
Chick Corea's
"Return to Forever" sounded wonderfully natural
and full bodied . Unfortunately, the X-LP's
increased detail and resolution over the other
phono stages can be a little irritating if your
source is poor. A recording I knew to unusually
bright, Julian Bream's "Music of Spain, Lute,
vol. 1" (RCA, ARL1-3435), sounded edgy but just
bearable on the NAD and Creek. However, the X-LP
rendered it uncomfortably bright. On the other
hand, the X-LP served up Andrés Segovia's
"The Castles of Spain" (Mecca DL710171) as one
of the most beautiful classical guitar tones I
have ever heard: rich, full, round, balanced and
not a hint of edginess. The same recording on
the NAD and Creek was ok but a bit dull or flat
sounding. Yes, rolling off upper frequencies
makes bright recordings and surface noise more
bearable. However, the downside is that good
recordings lose upper frequency detail and sound
a little flat. The X-LP gives you the whole
deal, i.e., the good, bad and the
ugly.
The X-LP has a
wide, deep sound stage. Chick Corea's "Return to
Forever" sounded huge compared to the other
phono stages. Unlike the other phono stages, the
X-LP allowed me to shift around on the couch and
still remain in the "sweet spot" and hear the
position of instruments in the
ensemble.
Snappy dynamics
were no problem for the X-LP. The NAD and Creek
both compressed the signal a little during
sforzandos in symphonic recordings or percussion
accents. The X-LP let me feel every whack of the
conga drum when Irakere (Columbia 35655) played
Misa Negra. The X-LP seems to have plenty of
headroom and thus accurately rendered both perky
and pounding dynamics without smashing the
sound.
If you give the
X-LP a good recording on a clean record the
detail and beauty of the music are astounding
for this side of $250 (only $50 more than the
Creek OBH-8). The X-LP is good looking, built
like a tank, well shielded and sounds excellent.
What a bargain for the demanding music lover on
a budget. I returned the NAD and Creek but the
X-LP is a keeper. Maybe I'll lose the 'wart and
buy that cute little matching power supply
later.
Update
• 7/14/2001
The X-LP was
replaced with the X-LPS late in 2000. I needed a
phono stage for another turntable so I bought
it. After a couple of weeks of burn-in, I
compared the X-LP to the X-LPS. They look
exactly the same, but the X-LPS is a little
smoother sounding with no apparent loss of
detail or fullness. Specifically, the lower
highs are rolled off slightly thus reducing
edginess on overly bright recordings. The
soundstage seems a little larger as well. A nice
improvement. Oh, the price is the same and no
RFI!
NAD
Electronics
Creek
Audio
Musical
Fidelity
2/15/2000 •
7/14/2001