Ένα δικό μας παιδί αυτό το μήνα στο Positive Feedback με το εξαιρετικό Phono Stage VPS 100 που έχει αποσπάσει διθυραμβικές κριτικές παγκοσμίως!
Musical Drama
The best phono stages have the ability to put drama into vinyl playback. You've probably experienced it at some point. The room goes silent; everyone is so tuned in it seems like nobody's breathing. The playback is riveting. It doesn't happen often, but these are the moments audiophiles live for.
What I want to investigate here is what makes this happen—what's the trigger and how can I get more of it? The moderating panel at this point can be expected to pipe up about signal to noise ratios, transient speed, low-level detail, purity of signal, and the rest of the jargon you read in the high-end journals. And most audiophiles would give it a satisfied nod and move on.
Well, I won't be nodding. I've heard far too many high-res, speed demon components that meet the above description but don't have it. Which suggests the list is incomplete at best.
The Journey
Let me share my journey of discovery. My first exposure to what I'll call Level 1 insight was back in January 2007 when I met the ASR Basis Exclusive. I was doing a phono stage shootout and the ASR stood apart. It was so eccentric—so qualitatively different from the other stages under consideration—at first I didn't know what to make of it. I described it thus: "It features not just the lowest "noise floor" I've ever heard with vinyl; it also purges all distracting, non-musical sounds that have been riding along unnoticed with, and masquerading as part of, the signal—stray mechanical noises that I didn't even know were there."
Conclusion
Most often, a review is a matter of chronicling how well a component does x, y, and z, how good it is at the familiar items on the audio report card. Very occasionally a component comes in that is able to nudge the listening experience in a novel direction. The Ypsilon VPS 100 Phono Stage is one of them.
"Man, what a natural, refined sound!" was my first enthusiastic response to the VPS 100. The differences lay in the quantity and quality of low-level information. The convincing little events are there, but equally important as this abundance of micro-level stuff is their terrific timbral and dynamic fidelity.
The VPS 100 conjoins excellent performance on the objectivist criteria with the unique qualities only step-up designs bring. The difference is this is the first step-up design that doesn't exhibit the step-up weaknesses.
As a total package, the Ypsilon VPS 100 Phono Stage offers the finest, most satisfying, analog playback I've heard to date.
source & Full Article: http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue57/ypsilon.htm
