ЦАПы — Musical Fidelity V90-LPS

Musical Fidelity of Britain designed the V90-LPS as a small phono preamplifier, built to sit between a turntable and the line input of an amplifier. It takes MM and MC pickups on two separate sets of sockets, each tuned for its cartridge type, and lives in a small silver aluminium case powered by an external adapter. The maker describes it as a modestly priced stage and names five areas it concentrated on - RIAA accuracy, extended RIAA correction, low distortion, low noise and overload margin. It sold for USD 249 in the United States and AUD 550 in Australia.

Key specs that matter

The MM socket presents 47 kohm and 100 pF, while the MC socket presents 100 ohm. Sensitivity for 300 mV output is 3.0 mV on MM and 400 microvolts on MC. Total harmonic distortion is 0.01 percent on both inputs at 1 kHz and 300 mV out. Frequency response is flat within +0 and -0.1 dB from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, and RIAA accuracy is within 0.25 dB either way. Noise sits more than 80 dB below signal on MM and more than 70 dB below on MC, A-weighted. Overload margin is 15 dB on MM and 22 dB on MC. The case measures 170 x 47 x 102 mm and weighs 600 g, or 1.1 kg packed.

Engineering and use context

The stated sensitivity figures work out to roughly 40 dB of gain for MM and a little under 58 dB for MC. The RIAA correction curve is extended to 80 kHz and beyond, so the equalisation continues well past the audio band. Overload margin describes how far the input can be driven above its rated level before clipping, and the margins here leave headroom for cartridges with above-average output. Each input is a single pair of RCA sockets, the output is one RCA pair, and a switch selects between the MM and MC paths. Power comes from a supplied 12 V DC adapter rated at 500 mA.

Pairing

The standard MM load suits ordinary moving magnet cartridges. The MC load is fixed, so it fits low-output moving coil types that work into that value. The nominal output level suits the line-level inputs of amplifiers, preamplifiers and receivers, and the small footprint lets the unit sit on a shelf beside the turntable to keep interconnects short.

Alternatives

Musical Fidelity's M6x Vinyl is a full-width discrete phono stage with one XLR and two RCA inputs, MC loading selectable from 25 ohm to 1.2 kohm and both RCA and XLR outputs.