I am waiting for mine beta unit…
When I had moved from Germany to the Netherlands, my Dutch “friends” made me watch it his video so often I got even got to appreciate the sarcastic humor of it. Perfect play of John Cleese.
I am not sure what the review schedule is. We don’t get to decide who at the magazines get review samples. We can request a specific reviewer but the publisher or editor tells us who gets the assignment.
I can tell you that Fremer will be putting on a few public demos using Stellar Phono in our room at RMAF. Michael brings some of his best discs and does a great show playing them and explaining the differences to those in attendance. So, if you’re
going to RMAF you can meet him and hear Stellar Phono.
Is his work for Stereophile separated from the work for his analogplanet site? Then there would be 2 options.
I really like his reviews…just recently I experienced that I heard exactly what he described and would name it comparably…furthermore he always compares meaningfully and not just writes what we read so often: isolated reviews (mainly praise to whatever product) which don’t allow any conclusion compared to other products and disable consumers to rank roughly.
This is precisely how I read his post, and more!
And nobody has explored Darren Myer’s comments about 4000 times voltage gain applied to the potentially noisy pots on the back potentially causing adverse things to happen to the speakers? Oh, but we can’t read about that any more, it seems. So all must be good, for now.
It does seem a valid concern worthy of exploration, and something which has happened in the past with other PS Audio products blowing up speakers (including mine), as per BHK mono example being mentioned on the Audioshark forums now.
Maybe it was considered that issues like scratchy pot noises or thumps during changing of set points have nothing to do with beta testing. Hence the decision to delete those comments
.
On the other hand this message got deleted because avoiding scratchy noises and thumps during operation of the device is already with high priority on the list to fix.
Good Morning. Well…Fun Times over here on the Beta Impressions forum today. Stereo Trolling. Nice! ; ). And Rudolph, before you insist you are not one…the point is that it has the Same Effect.
No, Brod, I have not even had time to do a serious evaluation of any kind, so I have simply been giving impressions here and there as I go along. Have had no functional issues so far. I will certainly report them if they arise. I don’t have time to torture-test anything at the moment. I am however simply enjoying music played through the thing. So shoot me🤷🏻♂️
Maybe I should correct that to, “so sue me”. No shooting please. Figure of speech - and one has to be careful around here nowadays, unfortunately.
What I am struggling to understand, Brodric and Rudolph, is what you guys are bringing to the party here. Seriously. If this were an actual face-to-face Meeting of humans in a room gathered for the stated purpose rather than an internet forum, I doubt the Group would tolerate the constant interruptions and agendas that have nothing to do with the matter at hand.
Paul,
Thank you for the kind reply. (Great also to know how many beta units are out in the wild.)
Question for you or Darren or . . .:
My biggest problem right now with the SPP is too much gain. I’m using the Low gain setting and rarely am I able to push the volume pot on the Simaudio Neo 350P preamp past noon. (Yesterday I watched your youTube Ask-Paul video about too little gain - I also like to have the volume pot at 1pm or 2pm.)
Any suggestions? (My local dealer believes it’s the M700 monoblocks, which he says are too much for my 12x10x9’2" room. Chris knows a ton, but I’m not sure I agree with him on that.)
Thanks again for your guidance,
Chaz
Good morning Badbeef, maybe you missed the fact that Darren’s message in response to one of the beta testers about why the Phono Preamp should be muted during adjusting the cartridge load got deleted. It must have happened while you were not reading the forum yet this morning. No hart feelings and no suing. Enjoy your Phono Preamp and your day.
FWIW, I spent a few minutes playing with the MC loading feature of the SPP - comparing the various pre-set cartridge loadings in real time via the remote, without bothering to mute the unit first. No bumps, sparks, buzzes, or unwanted behavior to report. The momentary mute worked as advertised.
I also set the “custom” pots to the same resistance levels as the presets (mute on while dialing in the pots) and toggled back and forth to see if I could hear any differences. To my ears, the pots replicated the presets.
One non-audible feature that I never expected is the finish on the Stellar chassis. It’s an attractive texture that strikes me as being a lot tougher and more resistant to scratches and marring than the anodized brushed aluminum surfaces featured on my Pass (and many other) products.
Thanks - yeah, clearly have some catching up to do ; )
I’m the curious poster regarding custom loading pot adjustment and I still see that part of the thread. Not sure what got deleted but not my portion.
I’ll post part of a reply I just sent to a PM from Rudolph:
Page 11 of the Manual (see bottom in BOLD)
The back of the Pre at the MC Custom Loading pots:
As I recall what got sorted out (part of the reason for a “beta” like this) is that the Software Guy explained that any changes made with the remote were automatically muted and unmuted, and Darren explained that what the Caution referred to was Muting before changing the Custom MC Loading pots Only. The manual wasn’t specific enough in stating this distinction.
I think one of the things they’ve figured out is that it is better to give instructions to err on the side of caution, not that they Expect the pots to make noise in the future. I have used them freely while the rig is on, and they make no audible noise. I can however, imagine a day, years from now, when they have sat unused due to being left at a specific setting, and they Might make noise when moved, simply from lack of use.
Round two. Over the week I was able to steal some listening time with the new Stellar Phono Preamp.
First, I will unapologetically state this is a positive review. I think the new Stellar Phono Pre is the best I have owned. For the longest time I used the MM input of my preamp. It provided me the sound I was seeking. But, at some point, I thought about phono preamps. Counting the Stellar, I have owned four.
The Nuwave Phono Converter is fine, but the Stellar is much better and will take over phono duties. A veil is lifted from the sound with the Stellar. The Stellar helps extract the details from my high end moving coil cartridge, where the NPC might be a tad shy about it. I am not getting rid of my NPC since it does a marvelous job of making a 24/96 rip of vinyl.
I have also owned a BAT VP-10 and a Sutherland PHD. Both were excellent, but I moved on. My memory of the sound has faded. I do recall the BAT was tweaky, trying to keep the 10 tubes singing in unison. The PHD had a polite, quiet resolve to it. I listen to mostly rock and, for me, the PHD didn’t quite do it for me. Being battery powered, it too presented its challenges. Like buying 16 D cell batteries at Walmart at 11:00 PM.
The Stellar is not tweaky. No tubes to roll. No cover to take off to switch out resistors. No batteries. For me, this is a huge plus. Would I like less gain on the low MM input? Probably. Not having a mono switch? Meh. Neither the PHD nor BAT had one. The NPC does, but not sure it matters much.
As I mentioned in my last post, I found the sound with the SP set at MC, 1000 ohms, medium gain to be wonderful with the Benz LP-S. The sound was detailed, had weight, and presented in a nice soundstage. Some questions were raised about the Bob’s Device CineMag 1131 Blue step up transformer. Yesterday I put it back in the system, MM, 47k ohms (of course), low gain. Maybe the SP had to break in some over the week, but it sounds fantastic. For me, SUT adds some slam to the sound. There is a rightness to it and the SP has no problem cooperating. Gain a little high? Yeah, maybe so. Reality doesn’t change with equipment break in, but our impressions of it might. A great thing about the SP is you can easily switch between MC and MM. Step up or no step up.
With the sut installed, the first side of “L.A.Woman” (Rhino Box RHI 74881) sounded the best I have ever heard it sound. A wide, clearly defined soundstage with Morrison’s vocals almost spooky present. Listening to the Rolling Stones “Out of Our Head (US Version)” (The Rolling Stones in Mono ABKCO 018771834519) was also remarkable. I did not miss a mono switch. I did miss a lower gain setting on the MM input. Couldn’t listen at 12 o’clock on my volume control. I like listening between 12 and 1.
I did listen to some jazz. The usual suspects - Mile Davis, Brubeck. What can I say about them? Patricia Barber’s “Cafe Blue” (MFSL 3-45002) was great. Her vocals had a palpable presence. All the instruments occupied a real space. Pace, rhythm and timing was spot on. The SP was also a joy on soundtracks I listened to - “Drive”, “Arrival”, “Kill Bill”. Special note: the “Arrival” soundtrack by Johann Johannsson (Deutsche Grammophon 479 6786) is worth getting. The bass information and detail in the recording is wonderful. I think soundtracks are overlooked by a lot of people because them seem secondary to the movie. They are not. Johannsson put effort in this. He is missed.
I exploring my record collection. The SP has made this a lot of fun. Loving it.
Received the new phono preamp about four days ago and very happy with the sound and features. My first higher end phono preamp . Main cart is an Ortofon Bronze. Seems like a nice combination.
Thorens TD 160 w/ Jelco Arm, Ortofon Bronze
PS Audio Stellar P3 Power Regenerator
PS Audio Stellar Phono Preamp
PS Audio Stellar Gain Cell DAC
PS Audio Stellar M700 monoblocks
OHM Walsh 4.5 or Zu Omen DW
PC w/ Audirvana/ Qobuz
Question-
I have an old Technics as a secondary table and have an LP Gear Vessel cartridge on it. The output is so very low, I run it on a cheap DJ PreII that gives some gain and feed it to an analog input on my preamp. Last night I ran it straight into an RCA switch box shared with the other table with the Ortofon and went into the phono preamp, then I can up the gain for that cartridge. Ortofon still sounds better - thinking the arm and wiring of the old table are just not up to par. Of course, I can use the one table (Thorens TD160 w/ Jelco arm) and swap heads, but then I have to set the tracking force and all of that. The little RCA switch box did not seem to hurt the sound, but it is probably not the best thing to do.
Can I run the low output (Output voltage @ 1kHz: 2.5 mV) cartridge into the MC inputs of the Phono preamp?
Other thoughts are to get another TT and an MC cart , but really,where does it stop.
Yours didn’t, one of Darren’s response was.
A full Stellar stack, nice, with a turntable I would seriously consider to combine with it from a quality and price point of view. Thorens showed the follow up, TD 1600 and the TD 1601 with balanced Phono output, to common mode reject noise on the vulnerable Phono signal. Hence my comments about the balanced input.
Anyway your TD 166 MII I believe has single sided outputs. But depending on the way the Jelco tonearm is mounted, at that time you probably had it done or did it your self Jelco also sold balanced Phono cables to connect directly to their tonearms.
Enjoy the system.
Even though my analog rig is gone I love hearing these reviews. Looks like you have some heavy vinylphiles doing comparisons against some pretty strong kit. Congrats Darren!!