Once upon a time there was… There still is! Who? What?
Vinyl, obviously!
Well, here I am, talking about noisy vinyl grooves tracked by a small diamond of various shapes.

I have to say I am not a vinyl extremist, I listen to a lot of music on CD, even if my recent upgrades have been directed to the first solution, which satisfies me the most. I hasten to add that I don't care if that listening pleasure is an outcome of a definite sonic superiority or of some form of nostalgia for the times when I was a student. I have, since long, quit such questions, which are a waste of time compared to the real life problems brought by - say - everyday news.

No more than a month ago, while I was reading some classified ads over the Internet, my eyes spotted an Audio Research PH-3 phono preamp. That ad was telling me "Buy me!" - I can't resist to those threats…

So, in a few minutes the game was over, I rang up the seller and decided to leave my beloved Synthesis Art in Music Phono 1 Wood, owhich I have nothing but good things to say of (and maybe I will tell you which good things sooner or later).

The PH-3 can be briefly described as a hybrid tube/J-FET, class-A biased phono preamp. The tubes are three Sovtek 6922 double triodes, selected by ARC for their task.

The preamp sports the usual ARC look: silver faceplate, black handles, two switches (one for standby, the other one for on-off), and a green led which glows brighter when, after a minute of warm-up time, the preamp is ready to operate. On the back panel there are the input and output connectors and the ground binding post. The innards are a beauty, with a very well thought-out layout and good quality components. If you want even better components, you should investigate the SE version, which is quite a bit more expensive. The preamp, as delivered by the factory, is configured for MM, with a 75Kohm resistive and a 90pF capacitive load. If you want to use a low output MC cartridge, ARC provides you a resistor kit, which must be soldered on the PCB to adapt the input load to any cartridge. 0.25mV is the lowest input the preamp can cope with, so you can't use very low output MC cartridges without a step-up transformer (which is a good way to use those cartridges, by the way).

I need to tell you that, when I was delivered the preamp, one of the tubes was misbehaving, so, after some attempts to transplant other tubes and some swapping, I decided to purchase a set of ARC specially selected tubes from the distributor.
I tried a Philips tube with the two working Sovtek ones, but I wasn't that satisfied, even if the sound wasn't bad, in absolute terms.

Well, as I got the tubes I installed the damper rings and I couldn't help to have a first listen, even knowing that I had to "cook" the tubes for optimal results. After the standard one-hour warm-up time, I found out that the tonal balance was tipped to the upper midrange and that the bass range was quite loose. Some run-in was due, so I left the preamp in stand-by mode for about 80 consecutive hours. I got a thank-you phone call by the mains provider, in the meanwhile - they know me well, as my class-A tube integrated amplifier dissipates 300W…

Much better after that run-in time - this is for those gals/guys who think they can evaluate a product just out of the box. The first sonic feature that hit me was dynamics, much better than my previous preamp, which I still think is a price/quality ratio champ.

Speaker's corner's reissue of the Scherchen/Wiener Staatsopera Sheherazade, is rendered in all of its power. Timpani seems to threaten the woofers, which still are induced to distortion. The soundstage is huge, much larger than the side walls. Violin is simply magic. Orchestral tuttis are reproduced with lots of air and with no hint of compression. Ella Fitzgerald's voice, singing the Cole Porter songbook, is magic, too. Her voice's nuances are outstanding, the height is perfect, 170cm from the floor.

Stan Getz's sax, in Girl From Ipanema, blows its notes in my face, keeping the right position just behind the speakers plane. Beautiful, clear accents on the drumkit charleston; every strike is different from the previous one, as it was in the intention of the player.

Listen to this preamp if you can, you will have a good time with it.

I don't know whether this review is the first of a long series or it will remain my only one. If there will be more, you'll notice that I don't usually talk about mid, bass or high ranges. I don't care, unless a product presents evident frequency response aberrations in a specific range. What I look for, and what I think everybody should look for, is overall musicality. I know audiophiles who obsess about detail, the one which can reproduce the fly around the fourth-row violinist head, and, if that kind of detail isn't there, they think that those systems or products are downright bad. Well, how many of you can hear that kind of detail listening to live music? [Me - English ed.]
So I think that the sound coming from our speakers must be, first of all, as coherent as possible. I have heard megabucks-systems sounding confused or dynamically compressed, lots of detail but no emotional communication. Look for emotional communication, instead, and you will probably find your own sonic nirvana; you will also save lots of money, probably, and your partner will be happier.

The word of the day is always the same one: MUSICALITY.