How Happy Are You Really With Your Devialet Phono Sound Quality?

[Confused]

The short answer to the OP's question is 'yes'. A couple of years ago I had the chance to try a Tom Evans Groove phono stage with the D800. At first listen the Tom Evans sounded quite good, quite warm and nice. However, after a few A/B switches between the Tom Evans and the Devialet's phono stage it became clear that the Devialet's offering provided far more detail, accuracy and transparency, and was by far the one I would want to listen too. OK, there are better phono stages than the Tom Evans, but you are then talking money that is becoming comparable to the amp itself.

I have to admit that when I first became aware of Devialet amps, the fact that the phono input was digitised was one factor that really put me off Devialet. If you happen to have an analogue source then you would want the keep it analogue! I have now changed my view, I think that doing the very delicate RIAA equalisation in the digital domain is actually very clever and offers a degree of accuracy that would be difficult to match at any price in the analogue domain. Yes, there is a small amount of hiss if run a low output MC cartridge, but having said that, the Tom Evans phono stage was not completely silent either. From a practical point of view, I listened to some vinyl at the weekend, it sounded superb and I did not think about the hiss for one moment.