Фонокорректоры — Vitus Audio SP-103

The SP-103 is the phono stage of the Signature Series from Danish manufacturer Vitus Audio. After redeveloping the MP-P201 phono stage of its Masterpiece Series, Vitus carried a range of improvements from that project over to the SP-103, fitting the technology into a smaller chassis. The US list price is USD 50,400 in a standard colour and USD 56,700 in a special colour such as dark champagne.

Key specs that matter

Each channel accepts a cartridge through one balanced XLR pair or one RCA pair, and the output side mirrors this with one XLR and one RCA pair at 80 ohm impedance. Instead of a simple MM or MC switch, gain is chosen in steps - ten settings for moving coil at 50, 53, 55, 57, 60, 63, 67, 70, 72 and 75 dB, and eleven for moving magnet from 20 to 47 dB. Load choices for MC run in 21 steps from 10 ohm to 2 kohm, and the MM list adds a 47 kohm position. The spread of gain covers cartridges with outputs from 125 uV to 16 mV. The quoted bandwidth passes 800 kHz, with noise more than 110 dB under signal at 1 kHz and total harmonic distortion plus noise below 0.01%. Power use is below 1 W in standby and about 45 W in operation.

Engineering and use context

The SP-103 is built on a modular design so that future upgrades can be fitted without difficulty. Its power supply lives in an external chassis, which Vitus introduced to lower the noise floor in the signal chain. The main unit is 435 mm wide, 135 mm high and between 428 and 463 mm deep, and weighs 22 kg, while the separate supply measures 250 x 250 x 100 mm and weighs 6 kg. Every load and gain setting can be changed from the front of the unit or through the optional RC-010 remote control, so no boards need to be swapped by hand. Moving coil gain comes from an active step-up stage rather than a transformer, and the unit also supports mono cartridges.

Pairing

The balanced outputs suit a line stage with XLR inputs, while the RCA outputs serve single-ended preamplifiers or integrated amplifiers. Anyone planning a system around it should allow for two boxes, since the power supply is housed separately from the audio circuits. At the highest MC gain setting, even very low output MC designs can be connected directly, with no extra step-up device placed before the phono stage.

Alternatives

The RP-102 from the Vitus Reference Series is a phono stage with mono cartridge support and load and gain settings selectable from its menu.