Well I've had my Phono 2 in place for a couple of months now so thought I'd let you all know what I think.
I'd been using an Anatek MC1 for a couple of years and was really happy with it, but I do like trying stuff out and constantly pitched it against other phonostages amongst which were - Graham Slee Reflex, EAR 834P, Puresound P10 & a Whest TWO. The Anatek sounded better, to me, than all of them.
Throughout all of this I kept looking at the little black box on E-bay that was the Phono 2 but at £490 it couldn't compete surely.
Anyway, curiosity finally got the better of me and I ordered one, with the additional power supply. It was on 30 days home trial anyway so how could I lose?
It arrived a few weeks later and I unpacked everything. I have to admit that I was more than a little disappointed to discover that the case of the head unit wasn't a good fit, being about 1-2mm proud on one side, and also two of the rubber feet had fallen off! Regardless I set it all up, powered it up and left it to cook for a while. I didn't call the Doc about the casework at that time as I figured I may as well try it out first, then if, as I suspected it would, it failed to beat the Anatek it would be returned anyway.
I like to use Paul Simon's Graceland LP as a good test for the phonostages so pulled it out and cued it up with the Anatek - lovely, as usual, all nicely balanced, punchy but not overbearing, good detail and nice vocals.
I switched everything over to the NVA and cued up again, expecting any differences to be subtle and probably negative, well, how wrong I was!
The vocals were noticeably cleaner, though seemed to lack a little of the Anatek's warmth, but the detail and textures were something else! I sat mesmerised as I listened to familiar tracks that sounded so much fresher and cleaner with deeper, more textured bass. At the end of the album I thought to myself "that couldn't have been as drastically different as I thought it was, surely". So, back to the Anatek and play it again...... yep, nice vocals, a little warmer than the NVA, but everything else now seemed to be submerged in a sort of "fog", as if the singer was on the stage in front of the curtains and everyone else was playing behind them! The decision was simple.
To double check my findings I invited a couple of friends, who are into hi-fi, around for an evenings listening and, despite both being sceptical of possible improvement, they were both amazed and impressed.
Having decided to keep the Phono 2, I phoned the Doc regarding the dodgy casework and he immediately agreed to build a new one to replace it and said I could continue using the original one until it was ready, superb all round, I'm a very happy camper!
