Description
There are devices that simply amplify the signal from the cartridge. And then there is the Gold Note PH-5, and that's a completely different story. The Florentine company Gold Note has long built its equipment according to one principle: recording fidelity is not a sound concept, but a responsibility. The PH-5 is the embodiment of this principle in a compact, affordable package that inherits the DNA of the older PH-10 and PH-1000.
Although the PH-5 is controlled via a color touch screen, the audio signal never touches the digital domain. All settings — gain, impedance, equalization curve — are switched by high-quality relays right during playback, without interrupting the music. The discrete, all-analog circuit ensures that there is nothing superfluous between the needle and the output.
This is something you rarely expect in a device in this price range. The PH-5 offers three recording standards — RIAA, Decca London and American Columbia — each available in regular and Enhanced versions. The Enhanced mode, inspired by the technology of the legendary Neumann cutting machine, stretches the frequency response to 50 kHz, revealing additional stage depth, microdynamics and air in the recording. Old records recorded using non-RIAA finally sound the way they were heard in the studio.
Nine input impedance values from 10 to 47,000 ohms, several gain levels, a choice between MM and MC — the PH-5 is ready to work with the vast majority of modern and vintage cartridges. The gain for MC reaches 60 dB (with the possibility of correction ±6 dB), the input sensitivity covers the range from 0.1 to 10 mV. The 10 Hz / 36 dB/octave infrasonic filter eliminates parasitic ultra-low frequencies from the beating of the backing disc — without harming the musical material.
The PH-5 was the first Gold Note device with touch control — and the approach here is fundamentally correct. The display allows you to change any parameter with one touch right during playback. No more stopping the record to adjust the load for a new cartridge or try a different curve on old jazz vinyl.
The chassis is made of sandblasted anodized aluminum, a material that minimizes electromagnetic interference and mechanical resonance. The result is lower noise floor and clearer reproduction of details in quiet fragments of the recording. At the output there is a pair of RCA and a balanced XLR output for connection to an amplifier without a common ground.
Gold Note has provided for the PH-5 an external power supply PSU-5 — a super-inductive linear PSU, which allows the device to fully reveal its potential: a wider stage, deeper bass, more three-dimensionality. This is an architecture that grows with your system.
