Vertere’s Award-winning phono stage gets even better
Vertere’s first and so far only phono stage, the Phono-1, has turned out to be a stonking product. We reviewed the MkII version in 2019, and since then it has garnered five-star reviews and awards galore. There hasn’t been some massive design or philosophy change with the MkII L version. It’s a case of carefully honing an already capable product to make it even better.
Surprisingly, there aren’t any upgraded components or significant changes to the circuit design. What Vertere has done is more akin to housekeeping, where the physical position of numerous circuit components has been revised to reduce unwanted interactions, and the signal path refined to reduce distortions. The unit’s linear power supply has also been moved to the main circuit board, allowing improvements in the placement of the connecting tracks and ground plane optimisation. In addition, the signal tracks are now of equal length and care is taken to lower impedances and optimise track widths to improve current flow.
Externally, little has changed from our current Award-winner, the Phono-1 MkII, bar the use of an orange power LED to indicate the unit is working. The lack of external change isn’t necessarily a bad thing given the quality of the original design. This has always been a nicely made but basic looking box. There’s the usual single-ended stereo input and output RCAs and a choice of three grounding options, which are really handy in more hum-prone systems. Compared with the earliest Phono-1s, the cartridge-loading adjustments on the base are better labelled and easier to follow. There are numerous dip switches that, when used in combination, allow a wide range of gain adjustments from 40.2 - 62.8dB. Resistance and capacitance loading is also adjustable and means the Vertere should be able to cope with pretty much any cartridge, bar possibly some extremely low-output oddities. In line with most products in recent times, there has been quite a large price hike for this new version, which costs around a third more than the original did at launch. That’s just a reflection of the way the world is at the moment, unfortunately.
For testing, we use our reference Technics SL-1000R deck with a number of cartridges including Kiseki’s Purpleheart moving coil and two moving magnets – Vertere’s Sabre and Goldring’s 2500. The rest of the set-up is Burmester’s 088/911 Mk3 amplifier and ATC’s SCM50 speakers.
Improved clarity and insight
We are pleased to report that all Vertere’s work hasn’t changed the Phono-1’s character
