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5 day auction. I will shop no later than next day after payment. I will refund 10% if you buy it now. You will be promoted to pay the full price but I will refund. This has been my phono pre for a number of years and I have never even had the slightest inclination to switch. I am just downsizing and going away from separates. You have the option of either MM or High Output MC cartridges but many people are completely swayed by this with a quality MM cartridge and see no need for the expense of a MC cartridge. The Era Gold V works wonders with moving magnet and high output cartridges.So much so it had one influential reviewer declaring it to be miraculous!The Era Gold V takes over the reigns from where our legendary Gram Amp range leaves off in taking your vinyl sound to greater depths and heights.The Era Gold V phono preamp is available supplied with the PSU1 power supply, and a choice of voltages and power plugs; or in budget form with basic power supply, allowing you to upgrade to the PSU1 at a later date. Also available with mono switch option.At the time when the Era Gold V was launched (2002) it was considered outragous to make a high quality solid-state phono preamp just for high output cartridges (but OK if you did it with tubes...).But it gave those with less fortunate budgets the chance to hear what people with moving coil were hearing, giving moving coil a run for its money.It was so good that many dealers hid them away for fear of their moving coil sales (honestly - its true); and it wasnt until Michael Fremer reviewed it in the US Stereophile magazine, and TNTs Geoff Husband reported on it, that what it does for music became more widely known.It Didnt Sound Like A CD PlayerAt a time when others were trying to win converts to vinyl by making it sound like CD - hoping to sell more phono preamps - the Era Gold V instead pushed the bandwidth much further which led to a more refreshing and inspiring sound.Giving vinyl room to breathe it also did the same great trick as the Gram Amps, in pushing surface noise back and bringing the music to the fore.Little wonder then that Michael Fremer declared it miraculous. By the way, he still uses his Era Gold V and it often features in tests. The Graham Slee Era Gold V phono preamplifier is unlike any other phono preamp. It throws current thinking to the wind, and concentrates on its singular and only critical mission — that of reproducing music the way music should truly sound. The result is what we call the music lovers phono preamp. Michael Fremer in Stereophile calls it a miraculous phono preamp for its ability to change and dramatically lift an entire systems sound quality and make music sound more realistic and life-like!As with many high performance products, the results the Era Gold provides will only be as good as the source feeding it, but with a good turntable-arm-cartridge combination the results will be heard. At last, much of the grittiness blamed on the vinyl medium is exchanged for real music. Brass, with its complex harmonic structure appears as it should, rather than the usual distortion you get with slower preamps.As is usually the case, its the attention to the smallest details which make the biggest difference to how things sound. With the Era Gold, these small details are reproduced with such finesse that the music is brought to life. The life it had when committed to the master tape! Not just with modern high quality pressings or direct cut discs, but with used vinyl too, right back to the birth of RIAA stereo recordings.How this is achieved is based on Graham Slees concept of phase integrity, which can only be realized by fast electronics, which in turn is an art seldom understood, or achieved by other phono preamp manufacturers. Every natural sound has its harmonics. These harmonics carry the information our hearing needs to distinguish between instruments, voices, the particular way in which they are played or sung. They also carry the micro-information about the recording venue, the microphone placement, the reverb - natural or synthetic - sounds and energies that make up the backdrop to the recording, and that backdrops perspective.The power supply used to power the Era Gold V is the PSU1. It uses extremely low impedance, high temperature reservoir capacitors, paralleled for even lower impedance prior to a voltage regulator, which itself is very low impedance. Its 12 watt peak capability is far greater than the power demanded by the Era Gold.Additionally, the voltage is regulated a second time within the phono preamp itself, providing an extremely clean power supply to the amplifiers. It is further improved by distributed tantalum capacitors. However, it is GSPs attention to the signal ground which makes the biggest impact. The ground is many orders of magnitude more stable than any other phono preamp in the market, no matter how big the power supply!The fast circuitry of the solid state Era Gold places it on par with many a tube phono preamp. In fact, it can be quite difficult to differentiate between it and a tube preamp. However the Era Gold carries none of the frequency limitations (Miller capacitance). Many have found it unbelievable that such a big, controlled and astonishingly musical sound can be made by such a small box. SpecificationItemMeasurementInput range2mV to 10mVOutput (for input range)252mV to 1,260mV (1.26V)Maximum input39mV rmsMaximum output4.914V rmsGain42dB (126) at 1kHzInput impedance47k Ohms plus 100pfOutput (driving/source) impedance910 OhmRecommended load impedance10k Ohm or greaterNoise at output-65dB CCIR Q-pkDistortion0.02%RIAA accuracy< 0.5dBChannel balance0.2dBChannel separation64dBSize (approx.)W: 107 x H: 50 x D: 180 (mm) inc. jacks Add the missing information to see the stereophile review com/phonopreamps/105graham/index.html
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