u/CrushBandicat

Bought the Art originally because I got my tube amp given to me and just needed something (I like the phono stage on my solid state receiver).

I never cared for it - hard to pinpoint in words what I don’t like about it. It’s almost felt TOO clean, too “digital” almost on my records. To me it just lacks the personality you get from running a nice vinyl setup.

So I got the iFi Zen Phono 3 and, yep… this is what I was looking for. Brings my records to life the way I was used to on the Denon’s phono stage, better actually.

To me $250 is definitely not cheap for a phono preamp, but it’s more or less the limit of what I was looking to spend. Anyway - so far so good! Digging this thing.

Got both of these so cheap it was a no brainer. Record condition is mint too. The stuff that comes out of that Ponty / Duke record is really something considering it’s 1969