Фонокорректоры — Chord Ultima Phonostage

The ULTIMA PHONOSTAGE is a phono preamplifier from Chord Electronics of Kent, England, and the company calls it its most advanced phono stage in almost 40 years. The first public showing was in 2025 at High End in Munich, after which Chord presented it to UK visitors at the Bristol Hi-Fi Show on 20 to 22 February 2026 and scheduled availability for 2026, with an announced price of around GBP 18,000. The design draws on decades of experience from John Franks, founder and chief designer of the company, and adapts the circuit topology of the ULTIMA amplifiers to phono duty.

Key specs that matter

Three phono inputs are provided, and each one offers XLR as well as RCA sockets, so a cartridge can be connected balanced or single-ended. Every input can be set independently for a moving magnet or a moving coil cartridge. Moving magnet loading is 47 kohm with a choice of capacitance values. For moving coil cartridges the load can be set from 12 ohm to 2.2 kohm in single-ended mode and from 24 ohm to 4.4 kohm in balanced mode. Gain has 14 settings per input under microprocessor control, and a gain boost function extends the range of cartridge outputs the stage can handle. The output side carries one XLR and one RCA pair. Casework comes in black or silver.

Engineering and use context

Chord uses a dual mono layout, with each channel built as a separate path. Each moving coil input uses very low noise transistor pairs, balanced and matched, arranged in a multilayer configuration. An automatic gain reduction system watches for signal spikes and lowers the gain at once, which prevents clipping inside the stage and protects the loudspeakers further down the chain, and a clip detection function works alongside it. A rumble filter removes low-frequency noise from the signal. All settings for each input are stored and kept when the unit is switched off, so changing between turntables does not mean resetting loading and gain by hand. The front carries a central LED indicator between two backlit VU meters, and two built-in screens display the configuration of the active input.

Pairing

With three configurable inputs the stage can serve up to three turntables or three tonearms at the same time, which suits owners who keep separate arms fitted with different cartridges. A tonearm wired for balanced output can use the XLR input with its wider moving coil loading range, and the paired XLR and RCA outputs let it feed a balanced or a single-ended line input on the preamplifier or integrated amplifier.

Alternatives

The Chord SYMPHONIC is a smaller moving coil phono stage from the Choral range with one XLR and one RCA input.