Mini review of the Gold Note PH-10 phono preamp

I will definitely report back! And thank you very much for starting this thread. It was very timely.

 

For your enjoyment...

 

You need to get Nordost to build you some cast iron Sort Kones for under that Gold Note to match the F&R table. Cool stuff

 

As promised, here are my early impressions of the PH-10. Like our OP, I too am coming from a PS Audio Nuwave Phono Converter. I'll be honest I was never terribly enthused about the NWPC. While the mid-range was always nice and smooth, I found the NWPC a little sluggish with less than fully fleshed-out, solid bass. The NWPC also lacked that special sparkle/air on the top-end. In short, the NWPC was very competent but boring.

With only 25 or so hours on the PH-10, I fully concur with our OP. The PH-10 is an absolutely excellent phono stage. The highest compliment you can pay to a phono stage is that it makes your cartridge sound better. In my case, my Ortofon Quintet Black has never sounded better. I should also add that the PH-10 has plenty of gain. With an output of between 2.5 and 3 MV, the Quintet Black needed 65 DB gain in my set -up. With the NWPC I needed 69 DB.

IMO, the PH-10 is tremendously agile. There is a certain powerful athleticism that is displayed as it unravels the bottom end on Steely Dan's Aja and the acoustic guitar on Neil Young, Live at Massey Hall. I love Larry Carlton and his complex/dense guitar playing on the album Alone/ But Never Alone. The PH-10 unraveled this great album in all its glory.

In my system, the PH-10 completely smokes the NWPC and is well worth an audition for those looking in the $2K price range. The PH-10 displays great coherence from top to bottom. The bass is fantastic and there is that magical "air" up top that I was missing. Importantly, the mid range is also stellar and voices sound very natural. Finally, I love the fact that there is a modular upgrade path too. I will definitely be adding the external power supply and EQ curves unit when they become available. Heck, I might even add the Class A tube stage too!

 

That's awesome @Diskhound! I'm so glad you like the unit and that we are so on the same page. I concur re: the bass. Not only is it full and deep, but very well defined. I freaking love it. On the down side, the incidence of the wife yelling at me downstairs to "turn it down - it's too loud!!" has definitely gone way up! And as for the NPC, I'm keeping mine so I can continue to rip my vinyl as needed through the analog in, bypassing the phono stage. It's great as an ADC and my rips are coming out fantastic. Head to head comparisons on the rips with the PH-10 to analog in of the NPC versus using the phono stage of the NPC are not even close. The PH-10 is just so much more musical and engaging, it's crazy. Plus, with the PH-10 so quiet and couples with the also very quiet Soundsmith Zephyr MIMC Star, I really don't have to do any de-hissing on my vinyle rips. Sweet.

I must admit too have a little man-crush on the Class A tube stage. It's a little pathetic, really. I'm also going to tell Maurizio to let me know as soon as the dedicated linear power supply comes out. That's a no-brainer!

And BTW, have you used any of the other curves at all? I generally am going with the London Decca since it has a little treble tilt and more "airy" presentation compared the the standard RIAA.

 

Only one time so far. I have the Music on Vinyl pressing of the Rising Sons by Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal. While I love the music, I find the LP flat and lifeless. With the enhanced RIAA setting, it was greatly improved.

 

I just ordered one been on a phono stage roller coaster of late...stay tuned

 

Excellent. Let us know what you think!

 

Just curious, where are people purchasing their ph-10 from? May be interested in one of these myself!

 

Call Audio Exchange in Richmond, VA. They have one in stock as we speak. Ask for Donny at 804-282-0438. Good guys.

BTW, I liked the PH-10 so much, and was suitably impressed by the company, I have ordered the Gold Note Mediterraneo turntable, but it has yet to arrive. I can't wait! This table is freaking beautiful! I'll post pics once I get it.

 

So how about some pics, @SHU? I think we'd all like to see the Mediterraneo with the ceramic arm! And the Van Der Hul cart!

 

So does this mean you’re moving on from the Fern and Roby or are you just adding to the collection?
My wife’s family lives in Richmond so I’ve always had a thing for that F&R table!

 

We'll see. I really didn't have plans on replacing the Montrose but was made an offer I absolutely couldn't refuse on the Mediterraneo, so I got it. If I don't like it as much as the Montrose, I might sell it at no significant loss. OTOH, if it blows the Montrose out of the water, I might move that one. I can definitely imagine a scenario where I keep, and enjoy, both. As a matter of fact, I hope that's the case!

 

I'm pretty sure you're going to like your Mediterraneo!

 

PH-10 for sale on US Audiomart

 

Well I got my power supply for the PH-10, the PSU-10 the other day from my local shop. It was a long wait for the unit since it was initially supposed to be available in January. It is a very attractive unit and mates perfectly with the PH-10 in look and feel. Mine are both the black finish. The fit and finish are great, as with everything I've seen from Gold Note. But before I started, I had to upgrade the firmware of the PH-10 to accommodate the PSU-10. It was frustrating because I kept getting and error saying that "no com port could be found", or something of that nature. It turned out my USB cable was bad so switching that out fixed the problem. So now with the firmware upgraded I connected the dedicated PS cable from the PSU to the PH-10 and simply attached the power cord that was previously attached to the PH-10 to the PSU, and powered on the units. It worked perfectly! I must say that without any break-in time at all, the sound coming from the Ph-10 seemed to have a little more life, a little better soundstage with wonderful instrument separation. I know that bias is a real thing, but I try to be impartial on these things when comparing. I really did like the sound better with the PSU powering the PH-10.

I measured the noise floor with the PH-10 on without a record playing with a calibrated mic using Room Eq Wizard at various gain levels of my preamp, with and without the PSU powering the PH-10, and both were equal. The baseline in my room was about -45 dB, but that was with AC running since it was a hot day. I only started to get a bump in SPL at about -20 dB and it was a miniscule increase of about 1.5 dB, and imperceptible to my ears. I usually do not listen as loud -20, and never above -10, in my system, although my PS Audio monoblocks are pretty powerful and have gobs of power reserve, so that might be misleading. By 0 dB on my preamp I had a 10 dB bump in background SPL for both through the phono system. Not bad at all. I was hoping for a measureable decrease in the noise floor with the PSU attached, but I think that might be because I run everything through my PS Audio P10 power conditioner, and the incoming power to the naked PH-10 is pretty clean to start with. I wonder what will happen to the noise floor once the unit has broken in, if anything? One thing I need to do is try the PH-10 and PSU without the PSA P10. The PSU operates as a power conditioner of sorts so maybe plugging it into the P10 is redundant, or perhaps harmful. I doubt it is harmful, honestly. It would be nice if the PSU handles all the power conditioning needed for the PH-10 so I could free up a spot on the P10 for something else that needs it. Anyway, I'll break it in over the next week and report back with additional impressions. Maybe even provide a before and after rip for you guys to judge for yourselves.

 

Watching this and the Montrose intrigues me to say the least and Made in America.

 

I just heard back from Maurizio Aterini, the lead engineer for Gold Note. He said that in his opinion, this unit benefits significantly from break in and still improves up to 100+ hours. That would be amazing since I already like the sound quite a bit with no break in at all. As for whether or not I should connect to my P10 power conditioner, he said it probably doesn't need it, but it won't hurt to try. He suggested for me to give it at least 100 hours of break in and then try it with and without the P10 to see for myself and report back to him my findings. Consider it done.

As for the Montrose @mkane, I still have mine and it's wonderful. Christopher has modified the junction box so that it easily comes on or off so that you can easily add a Maverick phono card and obviate the need for an external phono preamp. I don't use it that way, but it's a super elegant solution. Christopher is quite the industrial designer, I must say! It sounds more similar than different compared to the Mediterraneo, but that's a discussion for another day.

 

^^ Thanks and looking at the Heirloom unit. I sent them an e-mail.

 

While I don't have the P10, I do have the PH-1. Got it early DEC/17, and it came into its own in MAR/18! Long break-in, but it has very similar sound like the P10. The PH-1 made my Denon DL301mk2 sound fantastic! Now its making beautiful music with my AT-ART9!
Cheers, Doug

 

Here's a pic of the two side by side. They are a handsome pair!

 

My PSU-10 will arrive in the next few days. I too will post my thoughts.

 

Well I just did a very interesting experiment. I was curious of the effect of the PSU-10 on the PH-10 with and without the PS Audio P10 power conditioner on the noise floor. I started with measuring SPL using a calibrated mic with Room Eq Wizard (about 5 ft from my left speaker), which is very accurate in my experience. I started at -30 dB and measured in 10 dB increments to 0 dB. I measured using the following conditions:
PH-10 without PSU or P10
PH-10 with PSU but no P10
PH-10 with PSU and P10
PH-10 without PSU but with P10
PH-10 off and PSU off with system on

The following is the data obtained. Keep in mind my listening room is fairly quiet but could be quieter. My baselife noise floor is about 47-48 dB. While recording measurements generally fluctuate about 1-1.5 dB so I try to pick the average number in that range. This gets me within +/- 0.5 dB of the correct number, I think. Sorry if the formatting is off.
-30 dB -20 dB -10 dB 0 dB
PH-10 without PSU or P10 52.5 59 69.2 78.6
PH-10 with PSU but no P10 48 48.5 56 65.6
PH-10 with PSU and P10 48 49 54 63.5
PH-10 without PSU but with P10 48 49 54.2 63
PH-10 off and PSU off with system on 48 48.5 50.5 57

So this is very interesting for several reasons. First of all, I think it is clear that if you do not have a quality power conditioner such as a PS Audio P10 that a) you should get one right now, if possible and b) you need the PSU-10 if you own a PH-10, but not a power conditioner, desperately. The improvement in the noise floor is substantially improved by up to 13 db without a power conditinoer!! Wow! Secondly, the P10 does improve on the lowering of the noise floor by the PSU but marginally so. At the levels I listen to (usually between -30 and -20 but up to -10 on occasion), the difference is borderline not noticeable. Third, if using the power conditioner, the PSU does no further lowering of the noise floor. Now remember, I do find the music more dynamic and detailed with the PSU using the P10 than without so I think that there is still substantial benefit to using the PSU, even without a lowering of the noise floor. Fourth, the PH-10/PSU-10 is very quiet, adding only 5.5 dB of noise without the P10 at a very loud volume of -10 dB and 3.5 dB with the P10. Lastly, the system overall is very quiet with the P10 adding only 2.5 dB of noise floor at my max volume level. Fascinating stuff. I think this strongly validates what the PSU-10 strives to accomplish in providing clean power to the PH-10. Keep in mind the electrical input to the P10 is fairly noisy measuring about 2.8 % THD, which could be better, and the output after conditioning at 0.1-0.2%. So the PSU unit is nearly as effective at filtering and lowering the noise floor for the PH-10 as the P10, which is a $5k unit! Well done Gold Note!!

 

Interesting results, though it seems like you must have some type of grounding issue with the stock unit if you're getting that much noise reduction with a separate power supply or regenerator system. Do you know what's the dominant frequency range in the noise spectrum? Is it low frequency hum? Are you attributing it to the distortion on the AC power line? Could be I guess, that is one of the main causes for hum in some situations, and apparently you are seeing a lot of waveform distortion at your place.

 

I'm not sure exactly where the noise is coming from but the distortion number is high going into the P10 at 2.8% whereas in my old place it was more around 1.8-2%. Is there also a ground loop issue? Maybe. There is more of a mid-low frequency "buzz". I also plugged into a different socket for convenience sake, which can cause a ground loop. I may repeat from the same socket. Regardless, of the issue, I think it speaks well of the PSU-10.