Our expert team reviews products in dedicated test rooms, to help you make the best choice for your budget. Find out more about how we test. Show Small but perfectly formed, the Pro-Ject Phono Box S is solid and relatively heavy, sporting a power button on the front and a set of inputs and a set of outputs on the back. There’s a subsonic filter switch too, and if you want to get your hands dirty, then you’ll find switches on the bottom for selecting MM or MC operation and making adjustments to the gain and impedance. Pro-Ject Phono Box S review: performance Functioning as an MM phono stage, the sound isn’t too dissimilar to the styling: no nonsense and with plenty of weight. The muscular bass is powerful yet controlled – and better integrated than the Musical Fidelity V-LPS II we've also tested (also £120). Radiohead’s In Rainbows is a tough test in places and despite good insight and a room-filling sound, the Pro-Ject doesn’t sound quite as dynamic or agile as the Graham Slee Gramp Amp 2 (£160), and lacks the precision of Cambridge Audio's 651P (£120). Pro-Ject Phono Box S review: verdict It does better than most budget boxes in MC mode, however. There’s weight and detail here, but we just need a little more excitement. See all our phono stage Best Buys Follow whathifi.com on Twitter Join whathifi.com on Facebook Find us on Google+ What Hi-Fi?, founded in 1976, is the world's leading independent guide to buying and owning hi-fi and home entertainment products. Our comprehensive tests help you buy the very best for your money, with our advice sections giving you step-by-step information on how to get even more from your music and movies. Everything is tested by our dedicated team of in-house reviewers in our custom-built test rooms in London, Reading and Bath. Our coveted five-star rating and Awards are recognised all over the world as the ultimate seal of approval, so you can buy with absolute confidence. The S2 Ultra uses an external wall-wart type PSU, which means there should be a reduction in noise levels in comparison with housing the PSU internally. Adjustments for loading and gain are on the underside of the chassis, and there’s a decent range of adjustment for such an affordable design. The down side is that the dip switches to do this are really small and adjusting them is extremely fiddly. Compared with some more costly phono stage models, there are a few gaps in the settings for moving-coil cartridges, but generally speaking it’s possible to get close to the recommendations for most cartridges. The all-metal casework is extremely solid and feels of high quality for the price. I like some of the little details, like a power button and a grounding post that is large enough to handle the spade terminations from my tonearm cable. The rest of the socketry also feels solid and even though the unit itself is small, there is enough space to ensure that all but the most enormous of RCA plugs can be accommodated. Sound quality Connected to a Michell GyroDec turntable with SME M2-9 tonearm, I kick off proceedings with the moving-magnet operation using an Audio-Technica ATM-VM95SH cartridge (HFC 446). The phono stage is commendably quiet at idle and you need to raise the levels to bombastic for unwanted noise to creep in. This gives it the dynamic space it needs to shine and the results are extremely impressive. The heavyweight electronica of Every Open Eye by Chvrches is big and confident. The S2 Ultra provides the headroom to ensure that the punchy Leave A Trace has the necessary impact and scale it needs to shine. Lauren Mayberry’s vocals are well defined and the ideal of a ‘warm and harmonious’ sound is achieved without the performance feeling soft or in any way sluggish. Playing the comparatively slower and more considered Fink’s Sunday Night Blues Club Vol. 1 the results remain extremely impressive. Instruments demonstrate a consistently believable tonal quality and decay to notes. It’s commendably resistant to amplifying surface noise and these factors combine to ensure that you listen to the music that’s been recorded onto the record rather than the record itself. Switching to a Nagaoka MP-200 that’s priced around £350 (HFC 434) suggests that the phono stage has the ability to work with moving-magnet designs that comfortably cost more than it does, while the lovely sweetness that the cartridge is capable of demonstrating is convincingly reproduced. Moving up to Goldring’s £895 Ethos moving coil (HFC 449) highlights some of the limitations of the S2 Ultra. The switch to the 60dB gain setting allows for some noise to creep in during idle and quiet passages and is sufficiently apparent that it can become a faint distraction with some music. The news isn’t all bad, though. Its ability to convey the way the Ethos captures the emotional content of whatever vinyl is being spun is beautifully realised. Nick Drake’s Pink Moon sounds wonderfully intimate and lifelike and is helped, once again, by the Pro-Ject’s ability to make voices and instruments sound highly natural and convincing. Is Project phono box any good?I really like the sound of saxophone and electric guitar on this unit, voices could be a little more forward but I have also heard laid back voices on 1K tube phono stages before, so some things just come down to personal preference.. Its also well grounded with a low noise floor. What are the gain settings for the Pro ject tube box S2?Possible settings are 40, 43, 50, 53, 60 and 63dB. The button on the right side of a front panel turns on and off subsonic filter. Will a phono preamp improve sound quality?The shortest answer is yes. In general, because the process of RIAA equalization works to balance the bass and treble for a more balanced listening experience, a phono stage improves the sound quality. Are expensive phono preamps worth it?The short answer is yes. The longer answer is that the quality of your phono cartridge, spacial set-up, record collection, cable and the phono preamp itself will all affect just how much of a difference you hear. |
