savoy014

Introduction A very long time ago when I was a wee little audiophile, there lived a cable designer. His name was Chris Sommovigo and he designed a really famous digital cable that become the go-to cable for SPDIF use - The Illuminati D-60.  Now, wee little audiophiles don't have a lot of money, especially ones that did not have a part-time job, nor rich parents. Hence, I never got that D-60, and after much sleepless nights worrying about signal reflections as a result of impedance mismatches, I took the cheap way out and purchased some 75 ohm coaxial cable used for TV aerial use and soldered some RCA connectors on them.  Illuminati eventually got acquired by Kimber cable, and Chris ended up starting a few other companies such as Stereovox and Black Cat Cable.  I finished school, got a job and can thankfully now afford some audiophile toys for myself from tome to time. Recently, Black Cat Cable offered a limited run of a modestly priced RCA cable, "The Tube" with the very ...

Introduction As luck would have it, a kind soul lent me a Nagra BPS phono stage for a week to conduct an analog workshop for a small group. The BPS was handed over to me in a small plastic flightcase, which was a refreshing change from the equipment I have had to handle recently (which could double up as weights in the gym !) Description The Nagra BPS is slightly larger than the palm of my hand, and operates from a single 9V battery. It has a variety of loading and gain options, which should make it easy to mate with a variety of cartridges. MC gain is partly accomplished using in-house wound transformers. The top cover of the BPS removes easily using the supplied hex key, giving access to various jumpers and the loading board. A separate hatch allows you to swop the 9V battery easily without having to open the top cover.  The front panel has a single toggle switch with three positions, "on", "off" and "test" (for battery life). The rear panel has two pair...