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GRAHAM SLEE PROJECTS LTD
Era Gold Reflex phono preamp
The new Graham Slee Era Gold Reflex phono preamp offers pinnacle performance
for moving magnet and high output moving coil cartridges.
Leading edge technology and understanding
Like an extraordinary musical instrument of complex wizardry and craftsmanship, the new Era Gold Reflex is the result of two years of tuning our highly respected Era Gold V to the limits of currently available technology and understanding. It has been through a deeper exploration of stability in the context of our wide bandwidth designs that the Reflex has come into being. The way it has told us that it is right, is through the musicians and singers - the way they have become "unstuck" from one another. The Reflex has the ability to separate the performers further than before, but still keeps the togetherness or cohesiveness of the performance. It can enable you to hear that missing word while still hearing the instrumental accompaniment - that's what stability with wide bandwidth does - and nothing else can.
In the Reflex the emphasis has been in making the extremes, both of the high and the usually forgotten low frequencies, absolutely stable, and that means a gain of unity (1) at those extremes, while still providing the right gain with the necessary time domain headroom for the music signal and all its harmonics. As for the low frequencies, that's something that's impossible to achieve in a truly DC coupled design - this is why such stages need tremendously big power supplies to maintain a just-adequate degree of ground stiffness - the foundation from which the music is launched.
Eschewing accepted wisdom, the Reflex is unashamedly AC (read capacitor here) coupled. But we do understand that electrolytics can distort. They distort when there is no polarising voltage across them - what do you think ours have? Cheap sexy looking black versions distort too. Ours are the very best, bought in bulk at considerable expense from the likes of Nichicon, Elna and Panasonic. They are special capacitors with many years of development behind them. Using capacitors we can ensure the Reflex is absolutely stable at a gain of twelve hundred plus that's required due to the recording characteristic of your records down at 4 Hertz (thus ensuring faithfulness of phase from 40Hz upwards), ensuring the circuit is stable right down to one twelve hundredth of that frequency where its gain has fallen to just 1 - that "magic" gain number which says there can be no oscillation here!
At the high frequency end it is just as important otherwise you have an RF generator modulating not only your signal, but transmitting its own little radio programs too. Our use of bypass capacitors is nothing new, but maybe using the right types is?
The Reflex is unashamedly active equalized! This usually leads to propagation delays which distort not only the transients at the start of a note, but "comb" the harmonics leading to a richly detailed mash of gross distortion (what some listener think is "warm and detailed"). It also leads to emphasis of record noise, producing massive spikes from all but the most virginal vinyl (unless further bandwidth limited). However, if there are no propagation delays then there is no such distortion or emphasised surface noise. The Reflex has taken the Era Gold V's audio-propagation-delay-free active equalization stage (250 volts per micro second) a step further, using two of the Era Gold V's noise matched op-amps in parallel, which increases current density, reducing circuit noise further than its already silent operation, and increases the already more-than-adequate "drive", but also takes the output into class A bias for virtually all output conditions that will ever be encountered.
With all this "processing power" it would be foolish not to try and get every single part of the signal through. In the Reflex we have examined the effect of the micro-currents that traditional amplifier star-grounding often neglects. What a waste not to hear what is in-fact there on the record by forgoing this opportunity. Usually grounding is used to simply get the noise performance down within acceptable levels. It should come as no surprise then to find that all we did amounted to not one single difference in Signal to Noise ratio, but it made a big difference to the amount of signal retrieved from the record. We have not re-tracked the existing Era Gold V board because PCB tracks are too inductive to make this sort of difference. As such, the grounding scheme within the Reflex is hard wired on - not just to the earthy side, but to the supply side that is essentially part of the signal ground too.
Graham Slee supposes that they could have taken a gamble on the above explanation making them rich, but in keeping with their philosophy of "being the common man for the common man" we have priced the Reflex - hand built in Yorkshire, UK- at a very honest and hopefully affordable price.
Hereby hangs a caveat: If other components in your system are simply not capable of this level of performance, then you'd probably be better-off choosing something else from our range of phono preamplifier stages. Until next year that is. Because the next thing we do will be to make a preamp to allow the Reflex the room to work.
Specifications for Graham Slee Era Gold Reflex phono preamp
