Preamplification Archive

My preamplifier is a Shindo Vosne-Romanee. I consider the preamp to be the heart of any good system, and this masterpiece does not disappoint at all. It has a great sense of life and colour and texture. The first thing I noticed when I put it in the system was the amazing bass. Super expansive and with great top to bottom coherence. My one has a mono option for the phono input, meaning I can use a mono cartridge and get sound from both channels, with the super stable imaging that that gives. It does mean I sacrifice one input, but that’s no great loss to me. I think Shindo preamps can be thought of as amazing phono stages with excellent linestages added. It’s filled with NOS tubes, selected by Shindo for the best performance, including the superb Siemens C3m, “famed as ‘perhaps the best small signal pentodes ever made…’  Built exclusively for the German post, these are special quality – 10,000 hour pentodes for use in AF and RF circuits. They were used in repeater amplifiers for long distance telephony in the 1960’s.”

Reviewed by the late great Mr Dudley in his Listening column a fair few years ago, it is easily the best preamp I have owned.

The specifications as listed by Shindo on their website are:

Phono Input：Switchable Phono MC：RCA Pin Jack Input Sensitivity/Impedance：0.2mV/2 – 100Ω. Phono MM：RCA Pin Jack Input Sensitivity/Impedance：3mV/100KΩ. Output (XLR Jack) Impedance: 8V/600Ω. Phono Max. Input Voltage：1,200 mV. Total Harmonic Distortion：0.01%. Signal to Noise Ratio：119 dB. Frequency Responce：20 – 20,000 Hz. Power Consumption：80W. Power Requirements: 220V – 230V 50/60 Hz. Dimensions：W 400×H 165×D 270 mm. Weight：10.5 Kg.

Prior to this I had a Shindo Masseto, Aurieges MM, Aurieges-L, a Leben RS100u and various others.

My phono stage is a Sentec EQ11 which is currently in use with the Technics and Leak set up. Having the ability to choose the appropriate eq curve for what I am playing is very handy. There is a rightness to the sound when you have chosen the correct one.  A great device from Sweden.