As requested, here are my first impressions of the SoulNote E-1 Ver2 Phono Equalizer after just a few hours playing time.
Now I don’t have a religious bone in my body, and I hate un-explained three letter acronyms, but after a few hours I thought to myself “Wow, OMG, JFC if it can do this to a humble MM cartridge, WTF will it make of an optical one?”.
Subjectively, there just seems to be more of the good things - sound stage, definition, even bass extension. This is of course very preliminary impression and I don't pretend to be a golden-eared audiophile.
A while back @lewm tried to convince me that vinyl could be better than CD - a proposition that is self-evident for digitally mixed pop/rock but not for classical in my opinion. Well, he was right!
In the interests of full disclosure, here is my currently playing vinyl system from the top down:
Cartridge: new JICO 192-VN35E (SAS/B) in very old Shure V15 Type III cartridge.
Table: new Holbo Mk2 air bearing system, old Audioquest 1-m RCA cables to
Phono stage: new SoulNote E-1 Ver2 Equalizer, with 6-m cheapo Amphe-Sound professional XLR cables
Or
Old Krell KSP 7B pre-amplifier, with Audioquest RCA cables to
Pre: Fairly new Marantz AV8802 running in Pure Direct mode and outputting via Van den Hul XLR cables to
Old Krell KSA 80 class A amplifier, then second-hand QED silver plated 57 strand cables to
Speakers; KEF Reference 1 (not meta) and
Subwoofer: Velodyne DD18
The Holbo, SoulNote and Krell pre-amplifiers are housed on and in a SolidSteel S3 rack, mightily weighed down with over 50-kg of Sydney sandstone on sorbothane hemispheres.
No special power cords, no power conditioning, just good old Aussie 250-Volts AC from the world’s biggest grid – taking well under half the current needed in North America or Japan.
No tweaking.
No attempt to match Sound Pressure Level between Krell and SoulMate. I could have run XLR from the Krell but that meant swapping five connections versus three. Stuff for later.
The top cover, made of perforated steel, rattles if you touch it. This looseness is a deliberate design feature, to keep acoustic vibrations away from the chassis. Apparently the main circuit board and even the connector blocks also hang free.
The chassis sits on three pillars, one bang underneath the hefty 270-VA toroidal transformer. Three spikes can be screwed into the pillars and SoulNote suggests that different shelf materials affect the sound quality. I have not fitted the spikes or tried shelf options yet. Pressing on either front corner of the unit easily tilts it!
The records I have listened to so far:
Ensayo ENY/AR-1: Acoustic Research Demonstration Record side 2: organ, solo cello, jazz band {trumpet, percussion, bass, piano), solo female, flamenco guitar
Mobile Fidelity / EMI original master recording: side 4 Elgar Bach transcription, Boult LPO 1974
Hyperion LPA67824: side B Grieg Piano Concerto, Hough, Litton, Bergen PO 2011
Hyperion LPA67425: side B Shostakovich Piano Concerto No 2, Hamelin, Litton, BBC Scottish SO 2003
Chasing The Dragon: direct cut Beethoven Pathetique and Moonlight Sonatas, Leneham 2019
Proprius PROP7785: Poulenc Concerto for organ, strings and percussion, Johnsen, Ingelbretsen 1977