A new phono stage was the furthest thing from my mind, but when I heard Darren give a talk about the new phono stage he was working on at a Colorado Audio Society meeting that PS Audio hosted a while back the hook was set. Fast-forward to the present and I couldn’t resist signing up for the beta program to test drive his creation. Vinyl hasn’t been my main focus for the past decade or so, as getting the digital source squared away has been the primary objective – which hasn’t been easy given the speed at which the tech has been evolving. So this is a good excuse to re-focus.
Spoiler Alert: The Stellar phono stage is an impressive piece of work. Once you move past the $2,500 price point for these devices, things get crazy pretty quickly. For the vinyl newbie or someone looking for their first high-end separate phono stage, this is pretty much a no-brainer. For anyone who is contemplating a $5k - $10k spend on a phono stage upgrade, this is a must audition product at the very least. Darren’s creation is going to cause some heartburn elsewhere in the industry.
The details from my listening sessions so far follow. First, some preliminary housekeeping to provide readers some context:
Overall, I have a fairly “revealing” system (read: “persnickety and demanding”) that in my current room tilts away from “warm” and towards the “analytical” side of the spectrum.
The analog front end consists of a VPI TNT-Jr table (perched on a Bright Star isolation platform) with a vintage ET-2 air bearing arm and a Dynavector 17D3 Karat MC cart (100 ohm loading). The reference phono pre for this comparison is my Pass XP-15. All front-end electronics are powered by a Power Plant Premier. The XP-15 and Stellar are sharing the same “zone” of the PPP.
The back end of the system consists of a Pass XP-30 preamp, Pass XA-160.8 monoblocks, Martin-Logan Summit-X electrostats, and a quirky, not-so-cooperative room. Interconnects from the XP-15 onward are balanced Kimber Hero XLR cables (pending an upgrade to Iconoclasts). Speaker cables have recently been switched over to Iconoclast SPTPC.
Some system shortcomings that will color any conclusions: the room/speaker combination has some as yet unresolved bass nodes at ~23Hz and ~100 Hz that require further acoustic work, so I won’t be overly focused on differences in bass response. Also, the Logans have an annoying sensitivity to any input that is less than perfect in the upper mids, so any problems in frequency balance in that region are immediately apparent. Elsewhere in the PS Audio forums, Wglenn put it perfectly in his description of Martin-Logan CLX’s: “… the CLXs are brutal speakers to deal with. If there is the slightest link in the chain that is out of whack the CLX will punish you with the results…” I would add that the same goes for the lesser ‘stats in the M-L line. But on the other hand, you are well rewarded when you get things right.
Out of the Box:
The first impression was heft. The Stellar is no light-weight piece of goods, which indicates that a substantial power supply is tucked inside. Chassis fitment was solid and defect-free. This was my first “hands-on” experience with chassis that the Stellar line uses, and I must say it’s a pretty nifty looking design.
Set-up:
Pretty much dirt simple. Incorporating a remote to control the gain setting and MC loadings from the chair is brilliant. As are the pots to dial in a “custom” loading setting. In contrast, my XP-15’s settings are controlled by four rows of tiny DIP switches on the rear panel. While there is a mind-boggling number of possible settings, getting there is a PITA and requires using the cheat-sheet in the manual.
Cool Factor:
I have no idea what the blue LED’s on the circuit board are there for, but they light up the insides of the box and a blue glow emerges through the air vents providing a halo effect that is sure to get some “ohhhs” and “ahhhhs” from visitors to your listening room.
First Listen:
I plugged the unit in and let it sit for 5 hours or so before the first listen. First impressions of a raw unit at the high gain setting and without benefit of burn-in were:
• Smooth, extended frequency response. No issues at all with the upper mids and highs.
• Nice “presence” throughout the mids, conveying an immediacy and a sense of “in the room with you” kind of thing.
• Allowed speakers to do their “disappearing act.”
• Wide soundstage. Maybe the XP-15 was a few inches wider … maybe.
• Great soundstage depth, but it did not reach quite as far back as the XP-15.
• Good delineation of individual instruments and voices, but not as much “air” between them as with the XP-15.
• Whatever improvements a full burn-in might produce - clearly an exceptional price/performance ratio right out of the box.
The difference in soundstage depth was small. The sense of “air” was more apparent, and probably the biggest difference I heard between the two, so I’ll be paying close attention to this as the unit burns in.
A deeper dive after a day or so warm up:
Next, I set both phono preamps to their mid gain settings, which happens to be 66 db for both units. I also employed the SPL meter found in the AudioTools app running on an iPad Mini to keep loudness levels reasonably matched.
• The soundstage of both devices presents the “in the room” effect that others have noted. With the Stellar, the front of the soundstage is pushed back a bit with voices/instruments at the forward edge of the soundstage recessed towards the plane of the speakers a bit.
• Both do a great job of maintaining separation between voices/instruments in the mix. The Analog Productions re-issue of “Art Pepper +11” features big-band style jazz with Art’s sax front and center. I could easily follow individual instruments in passages featuring massed horns. On this recording, both phono stages deliver all of the brass and body of the instruments without any trace of glare.
• The XP-15 is a bit better at retrieving minute, miniscule details from the soundstage. For example, I hear more of the “body” of acoustic instruments that are placed towards the rear of the soundstage. There is also slightly more retrieval of transient/attack detail. For example, on Paul Simon’s “Graceland” there is a bass line and bass drum beat that drives the tune, and the XP-15 lets me hear the “snap” of the drumhead being struck more clearly. Overall, I perceive the soundstage as more open.
• Given the above observation, it follows that I find that the Stellar tilts towards warmth tonally - especially through the midrange. The XP-15 tilts in the opposite direction.
• I can’t say which presentation is more accurate, but here’s an analogy that might help. Imagine you’re at a live orchestral performance. You want some light on the stage so you can see the players, but how much? Not enough light and you can’t see enough “detail.” Turn up the lights and you can now see what size mallets the tympanist is using. Turn them up more and now the resulting glare off of the drumheads means that you can barely see the mallets at all. Your individual preference will lie somewhere in the middle.
• Overall, this is picking nits. Like, are there 12 or 12.375 angels dancing on that pin head? Consulting the printed specs, the XP-15 has a lower noise floor (-81db) than the Stellar (-72db) which might account my observations relative to detail retrieval. The XP-15 is also a true dual mono design that has been cleverly packed into a single chassis. However, the XP-15 retailed for 50% more than the Stellar when it was a current design five years ago. The updated version (XP-17) is priced higher by around 70%. I can’t imagine that the performance difference will be worth it to many audiophiles, depending of course on how much empha$i$ they put on analog and the degree to which they suffer from audiophile OCD.
• To add some additional perspective, swapping out my MIT speaker cables to the Iconoclasts made a far, FAR bigger difference than what I hear between the XP-15 and the Stellar.
Well done, Darren !