Any ETA on the phono preamp and possibly a pic?
Stellar phono is entering alpha phase next month and after that beta will commence. Great product, the best phono stage (by far) that we’ve ever made. It looks like every other Stellar product.
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Thanks Paul. I would love to be a beta tester. 
I’ve cobbled up a couple of comparison music files to show the difference between mono as stereo and mono as mono. (Credit…or blame…where due. The mono as stereo is the first 30 seconds or so of the audio from a YouTube posting I happened upon. The mono as mono is the same 30 seconds pushed through Audacity to turn the stereo into mono.)
mono vinyl played as if stereo (YUK): http://bit.ly/monoinstereo
mono vinyl played in mono (AHH): http://bit.ly/monoinmono
Paul, not sure if I’m correct, but I remember the initial MSRP goal of the BHK phono pre a little above the DS/BHK pre price range.
Meanwhile when I see that you probably use the new TSS chassis for it and that the BHK phono will be a 2 piece unit, my concern is, it could be around 15-20k rather than 6-10k.
Do you have any goal in mind or do you let it go without a fixed budget limitation? The step from stellar phono to BHK phono then would be quite big and too big for many and for fitting in the (current) rest of you product range (as the TSS probably will be way above).
I suspected you begin a much higher price range all around with the TSS (fitting to such a phono stage and maybe a higher range pre in future).
Just trying to understand your future range segmentation.
I’d love to see a BHK phono around the 6k price tag.
Jazznut, not sure if you are assuming they will use TSS based on the information in this thread or another one, but from the above I see no definite choice being made. I had been under the impression (prior to TSS being announced) the BHK Phono would be in the DS chassis and would be around $6k. Now with the TSS it is possible the BHK phono could be in that chassis, but it would be dependent on BHK (the man) wanting to separate the power supply from analog circuitry. Paul has always said final cost is parts cost times a fixed multiplier, e.g., $1.2k in parts times 5 equals $6k MSRP. Assuming the only difference is the chassis (and a small number of extra parts to achieve that), then it is conceivable the TSS based BHK Phono could be well below $10k. This is all speculation, of course, but I think the unknown here is how good the upcoming Stellar Phono will be. If it is as good as touted, then the bar for the BHK Phono could be higher, not so much for BHK, but for PS Audio to market a significantly higher cost component.
Your last thought might get true (hope not as I definitely would want tubes), but then I still wonder about the PSA price/product segments that arise and are not fully represented yet.
Regarding 2 chassis or not, I think I read from Paul that BHK was quite sure to need 2 chassis. If this gets true, I think it will just by that fact be well over 10k (no matter which of the full chassis is chosen). An alternative option would be to choose a simple chassis for the power supply, but this wasn’t PSA strategy so far in the past. The next mystery is the chassis strategy itself…will every new product above stellar get the TSS chassis? Or will TSS introduce just an own product range much higher priced and the rest stays in perfect wave chassis or similar creations like BHK pre or DS jr.?
I understood PSA has no strategy yet themselves…strange.
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If Paul said they may need a second chassis then I bet they will use two just to improve performance even a little bit. The TSS chassis is nice, seemed slightly larger than DS when I saw it at AXPONA, but didn’t measure it, and most certainly costs more than two of the DS chassis. Still, they could use a DS chassis for the main circuits and a separate, smaller box for the power supply, but that seems utilitarian compared to the TSS chassis. Perhaps our discussion will elicit a response from BHK or Paul so we really know!
I suspect the last status is still valid: they know neither the exact demands of BHK yet nor have an own casework strategy yet, nor a goal for a price point.