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review iPhono 2

I must be slow as I could not find a link to place this as a review. 

So, I have written about the 1st gen iPhono in the past, comparing it to the very fine Coincident phonostage which I believe is about $6k. I preferred the iPhono but I could just as easily imagine someone else going for the Coincident unit. In that review I thought the Coincident had a better sustain, decay and bloom while the iPhono was hands down the winner in the prat department. The iPhono made my feet move, the Coincident, not so much.

Later on I added the iPower to the fray and the iPhono shored up the areas it lacked. As a former owner of the very very nice Graaf GM70 I was a bit surprised and dismayed when I finally received the iPhono and heard it once fully run-in. I would not have shelled out the thousands of dollars I paid for the GM70 and the vintage NOS tubs I purchased to make it sing, oh and the $1600 I had to spend on the Ortofon ST-80SE SUT to use with the MM inputs of the Graaf as I could not get it quiet enough to tolerate with the MC inputs. The very small $400 iPhono basically did everything the Graaf did (with the iPower that is).

My reference phonostage for the last few years (and probably many more to come) is the fabulous AMR PH77 and I’m running it with a set of Bendix 6900 tubes which elevates its performance even more than the already stellar stock configurations performance. In comparison to my PH77, I found the 1st gen iPhono to be a bit thin and during crescendos it could become a little ragged. Still, it remained in my arsenal as a handy and trusty back-up. The PH77 is of course tubed and as we tube owners know all too well, sometimes they fail and you are down for a while.

Compared to most phonostages I have heard, some of them costing up to $9k I found the 1st gen iPhono to be able to hold its own in some cases crazy as it may sound it was just plain better. I believe AMR intended the iPhono/iTube to be used in conjunction as a sort of baby AMR PH77 and I ran it that way for some time and yes, it does share that familial DNA when it comes to sonic signature.

Move forward some years and I have in my possession the iPhono2 and the iTube 2. To say that the iPhono 2 is better than its predecessor is far too simple a statement. Mr. Fremer thought it to be at least twice as good as the original. I would agree with his assessment. Out of the box with the included iPower is shows far more prowess in the areas of bass but otherwise is pretty close to the original. After about 20 hours a bit more fluidity begins to appear. Again at the 100 and about the 340 hour mark big jumps occur in the areas of fluidity and continuousness. When you get to 480 hours forget about it!

This thing sounds like it has a tube in it, and I don’t mean in that classic overly warm soft rose colored sound that I found so fantastic when I was new to high end audio. No, I am referring to a pellucid but meaty embodiment and rendering of the music. A sound one would immediately associate with MUCH costlier gear.

Most of my listening has been done with my second turntable system which is composed of a Technics SL-1200 GAE with a fully broken in Denon 103R on a LP Zupreme 15 gram headshell and my London Reference. The phono stage then feeds the iCan Pro (best pre I have heard and I have owned 2 MFA Ref units, the baby Ref and the full Ref), the Tube Research Labs GTP 2, and many more. I have had in my system for evaluation the Veloce (battery powered) the Allnic L3000 and many others. From the pre it goes to the custom active crossover and then to a Graaf Modena for the mids, a Harmonix Reimyo PAT777 for the Raal Ribbons and a pair of Acoustic Reality Thaumaturges ($25K when available) for the woofers. The speaker is called the Encore and is my own design. I simply got tired of paying for passive boxes made of MDF with wood screws going directly into the glued wood dust and sold for tens of thousands of dollars but I digress :)

The sound is at once flowing and dynamic. It grabs and holds my attention and really gets my foot tapping. The sound is MUCH more refined and fuller than the original iPhono with no hint of raggedness during large scale bombastic music. For instance it scales far more convincingly on some of the more challenging passages in Hans Zimmers wonderful soundtrack to Gladiator. The original could sound a bit blocky if you take my meaning. It did not have the ability to gracefully scale the mountain so to speak. The iPhono 2 does it with much more ease and refinement.

Here is where it gets interesting. As good as the iPhono 2 is out of the box and it is very very good (and especially after 340 hours or more) in fact far far better than the DS Audio optical cartridge system that I auditioned, it can be made to sound a good deal better. Now this is my own thing, the iFi line of SMPS’s are admittedly super quiet and much better than most SMPS such as the ones inside my apple gear, but I hate them ALL.

I do not like green eggs and.., ahem. Sorry, just flashed back to Dr. Seuss when I thought of my aversion to SMPS’s.

I mean I understand why they are used, efficient,  cheaper to ship and inherently regulated. But they still hurt the sound of my system. As an aside I am actually having a custom linear PS built for my SL-1200 GAE to replace the awful SMPS that Technics installed. So to the point, I replaced the iPower with a linear regulated lab grade power supply. I don’t like hyperbole so I offer none but the result was nothing short of breath taking. There is a great deal more that can be had from that little silver box with a good (and I do mean good) linear supply.

Next I added the iTube 2 to the fray. As I mentioned before AMR always sorta intended this combo to be a baby PH77 as was or may still be mentioned on the iFi site. How to put this; everything I have said about the iPhono 2 up to this point; multiply it by 2 times again. Now you have that sorta living presence that the performers are in your vicinity. Things are rounder, more palpable and it breathes much easier. Again I powered the iTube 2 with a linear supply along with the iCan Pro. Please don’t misunderstand me, I lived with these units powered via there very good SMPS’s for quite a while and they made beautiful music BUT I knew there was much more to be had.

Like Mr. Fremer (paraphrased) stated, to get better than the iPhono 2 you are going to have spend much more and you still may not surpass this unit. I auditioned a $16K current phono stage that people rave over and my ears tell me that it cannot compete with iPhono 2/ iTube 2 combination.  I will not call this a reference phono stage. It is great and I listen to it daily but I reserve titles like reference for the likes of Ypsilon, VDH Grail SB and my AMR PH77. The little combo does far more than I could have imagined. It capable of truly astounding musical reproduction on a grand scale.  

Remember to let it run in for at least 100 (and I suggest 300) hours before you really start to judge it but my guess is it won’t take most people that long to know that this is special gear designed by some super gifted engineers who also happen to actually be able to HEAR. Thanks for reading and I hope this helps someone make a decision one way or the other. Happy listening.


audiofun
audiofun OP
799 posts
 
Mantis-toboggan:

Thank you for the compliments regardlng the review. You will need a 5.5x2.1 mm barrel connector. You can find these at Dig-key, Amazon, Mouset, etc. should cost you more than about a buck.

you can try to find them with leads already soldered and then you simply make sure the outer barrel wire is connected to the "cold" of the power supply.

goto Amazin and search or "5.5/2.1 mm barrel connector" and you find 20" pigtails pre-soldered to the connector. A pack of 10 for $7.49 :)

audiofun OP
799 posts
 
Mantis-toboggan 

Correction: not "Mouset" but rather "Mouser". Also I meant to write should NOT cost more than a buck.
mantis-toboggan
16 posts
 
Excellent, thank you very much. By the way, your first review of the original iPhono was very informative and inspiring. I had already been an owner of the iPhono for almost a year, and it kept getting better and better, then I upgraded the power supply to the iPower, and the improvement was so awesome that I wondered "why is no one talking about this amp?" Sure, there had been a couple of good reviews, but those reviews weren’t enthusiastic enough in my opinion, and they were published before the iPower upgrade existed, so I searched around hoping to find more discussion and praise, and found your review where you compare it to preamps costing 6k-9k, and I finally thought "at least SOMEONE gets it!"

So when I heard that the iPhono2 was coming out, there was no hesitation to place the preorder. When I finally received it, I noticed immediately that the iPhono2, even without any burn in time, was noticeably better than the original. Then it just kept sounding better and better, and for the past 6 months or so I’ve been waiting for the praise to come trickling in. I still feel like neither the original Iphono, nor the iPhono2 get nearly enough praise, not widely enough anyway. Fremer’s review was good, but he didn’t go into enough detail for my liking. He mentioned that it was twice as good as the original iPhono, but to me it felt like he didn’t realize the magnitude of that statement. As a reader, after seeing a claim like that, I would have liked much more elaboration on the various aspects of the iPhono2’s sound, and your review has done a much more detailed job on that than Mikey’s.

There was another good review of the original iPhono, by Doctorjohn of Cheaptubeaudio, and he described the iPhono’s ability to create realistic "hall sound", and compared it to the forward-sounding in-your-face presentation of preamps like the Phonomena II, which he described as "upfront and unnatural", like it’s trying overly hard to impress you, but leaves you with only "a pastiche of highlights" instead of the full nuance of the recording. He contrasted it with the iPhono, which creates a more nuanced sound that doesn’t try to kick you in the face, but demands that you sit back and listen. He actually described all the praise heaped on the Phonomena as being an example of "how wrong Hi-Fi has become". I tend to agree with him, and I’m always reminded of that quote by Elaine from Seinfeld, "it’s like a big budget movie with a story that goes NOWHERE"
snovosel
17 posts
 
My initial thoughts of the iPhono2 based on my system:

I had to buy two. The first iPhono2 came from a major on-line retailer, open-box.  I thought I would save a few pennies but it was DOA so I returned it and ordered a new one that was delivered today. Within the first few notes of the first track of Sade's 1983 debut album, I knew something was different and interesting about this device.

Sparkle, musical, are the two words that immediately come to mind.

I compared the iFi to a Tavish Design Vintage stage w/the TungSol tubes, a Pro-Ject DS, and a SoundSmith MCP2.  The MCP2 I have had for a while; the others are new orders.  

My system is primarily tube-based -- PrimaLuna Premium HP amp and matching preamp mixed with a variety of different tubes, fed into a pair of Spatial M3 Turbo S speakers.  A VPI Prime running two separate 3D wands supporting a Dynavector 17D3 and an AT ART9 (both new) complete the package.  I'm in a drywalled/dropped ceiling room, carpeted floors, where half of a 18x28 foot room is devoted to two channel audio.  The Spatials are set four feet from the front wall, not toed in.  All electronics are off to the side; not centered as many people set up.  Sitting area is six feet centered from the Spatials.**  

Bottom line impressions: The MCP2 provides greatest depth of stage and best imaging.  The iPhono2 provides second best depth but its imaging is not as precise as the MCP.  The difference is apparent to me across diverse content -- jazz, Beatles, Beach Boys, classical, punk, New Wave, Zepplin, Aerosmith, Streisand, et al.  

The iPhono ever-so-slightly adds sparkle to any material I fed it.  It livens up the presentation without coloring it.  Maybe that's what Fremer meant when he said something along the lines that one could pay significantly more than the cost of the iFi for a phono stage but not attain the iPhono2's performance.

Yet even though the iFi is a tad more musical than the MCP, I can't help but feel that the MCP gives me a much more subjectively enjoyable listening experience perhaps because it delivers a more precise aural picture?  A prime example occurs when I play that Sade album, first track, Smooth Operator, where Sade leads into the song by speaking the line, "Heaven help him, when he falls".  With the MCP in play, her UK accent is so apparent on the "falls" but less so with the iFi.  I like that little bit of extra character -- it makes the playback more real, more believable. You can hear the accent with the iFi but you really have to be looking for it.  Both the iFi and MCP were loaded at 1k and at the stock gain.

As noted above, these are initial impressions.  Some argue that the iPhono2 must be broken in before it reaches its full potential.  So I will give it a bit more time and add comments later should I feel my impressions warrant it.  I could absolutely live with the iFi though, and may end up keeping it to use whenever the urge suits.    

**I've read lots of "reviews" where authors mention "3D" and "holographic" when referencing speaker performance but I have only ever experienced those sensations with the M3 speakers (vs. the many that I've had over the years).  Try to imagine a marriage between ProAc Response and Klipsch LaScalla.  I am very satisfied with how they integrate into my gear.

totem395
390 posts
 

snovosel
. Some argue that the iPhono2 must be broken in before it reaches its full potential.

   Thanks for your review, the addition of a replacement regulated
power supply has been mentioned to be a big step up over the 
wall wart. 
I would be curious to see if your findings changed.
 
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