Phono Stage of the Year
It’s often neglected, the humble phono preamplifier, but when you consider how very tiny are the signals delivered from a cartridge, there is every reason to consider the merits of undertaking their de-emphasis and initial amplification in a dedicated offboard box, rather than a phono stage built into a main amplifier or the turntable itself. A fine phono stage can entirely transform the sound of a turntable.
And Parasound’s $1249 Zphono XRM is not only fine in its performance, but also in its flexibility. It contains completely independent preamps for moving-magnet and moving-coil cartridges, so you could plug in one of each, but more to the point this has allowed Parasound to optimise sound quality specifically for each input individually, rather than having to make a compromise.
The Zphono XRM is quite small physically — it’s 218mm wide — but it uses its real estate wisely, to offer plenty of options. Front-panel toggle switches offer on-the-fly changes — for mono/stereo switching, rumble filter, and input selection, while the busy back panel hosts the separate RCA inputs and both unbalanced RCA and balanced XLR outputs, everything on goldplated socketry. The gain of the moving-coil input can be switched between 50 and 60dB, the moving-magnet input between 40 and 50dB, both via miniature toggle switches. A rotary pot varies the moving-coil input impedance continuously between 50 ohms and 1050Ω ohms a superior and more accessible solution than the DIP switches often used (because they’re “easier and cheaper”, says Parasound).
Technically the Zphono performed outstandingly well (we fully bench-tested this unit; results and graphs at tinyurl.com/ zphono), returning a flat, extended frequency response, excellent channel separation, ultra-low distortion and vanishingly low noise. But it was the musical delivery which clinched this award — the way the Zphono XRM drew additional clarity, detail and solidity from every cartridge we connected, allowing new insights into the artists’ performance. Which is, of course, what hi-fi is all about.
More info: nationalavsolutions.com.au