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Trinity phono

This is one hell of a serious phono stage achieved unattainable measurement result in the industry hitherto. The spec of the components utilized is extremely tight. The designer shares with us he cannot comment on the sound but he cannot measure any "harmonic distortion".

Comments

  • The concentric impedance switch is a very clever design. The wide range of impedance values available suits all kind of cartridge. There are two modes of operation. We shall test soon enough this Thursday with the Transrotor flagship turntable.
  • Anything already listened to the Trinity phono? This should be a serious work given reputation of Trinity in the extreme niche domain such as their crazy dac.
  • This true full balance differential phono stage by Trinity is indeed a great phono stage. It is definitely one of the truly exclusive phono stage in the league of Da Vinci Virtu/Tidal Prescenio serving the most discriminating user. When partnered with the Transrotor flagship turntable with the Koetsu Jade Diamond pickup, the music flowing out from this system is simply exquisite, fast, detailed, lively, and punchy. Dynamic contrast is excellent. Tonal color is rich.

    We listened to Mahler 5/6, some jazz and piano by Agerich playing extremely difficult passage. The phono stage simply passes everything in a musical way with flying color.

    最後插埋條"絕對創造"的添哥電源線將今晚推致高潮.
  • This is a truly exquisite phono stage. It has great dynamics and resolution but at the same time is very refined. It brings out the rich tonal color of the koetsu. It brings out the orchestral scale when playing mahler 6, but is sweet and happy when playing ella. I feel I have ill-treated it because I put it on a bar stool (the tonearm cable is too short!). I am sure it will behave even better once I put it on a proper place.
  • Congratulations! This is the most precise instruments to deliver the true contents of what come out through your vinyl system....I cannot wait to hear it in your place or in AE showroom some time in the future....but before that plesae continue to report on how it evolves in the next few days/weeks integrating with your system.
  • I just want to introduce myself. My name is Dietmar and I am the designer of the TRINITY products.
    The best way to describe my design philosophy is this citation:
    “As no cable can improve any signal which it is passing (unless it is filtering out some other problem that should not be there) it must be concluded that the best cable is no cable. Moreover, as no amplifier can improve the accuracy of the signal which it is passing, the only conclusion which can be drawn is that the combination of amplifier and cable can only degrade the signal. However, as we must use an amplifier and a cable, art and science are both employed in order to minimize the inevitable degradation.” Loudspeakers, Philip Newell and Keith Holland
    The RIAA preamp is one kind of such a design, it has no measureable distortion and the noise is at the physically limit. As J asked me about the sound I had to answer I cannot tell you. The TRINITY products have no own sound, since we do not add any harmonics or noise to the music.
    But at the end of the day the music matters or as William Shakespeare said:
    “The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
    Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night
    And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.”
  • Dietmar,

    Welcome to the AE community. I admire your work very much. Your dac is probably the most expensive in the world. I had a brief encounter with it in the Munich show two years ago.

    The measurements of the phono shown on your website are too perfect to be true. I can also see you are not the type who twist the context by showing a few measurements to justify the sonic quality. Your frank answer of "not knowing" how does your phono sound is a candid reflection of your design philosophy.

    I look forward to listen to it in the AE showroom.

    Cassph, you certainly have a very exquisite taste! Enjoy!
  • Raymond,
    I do a lot of measurements before I ship a device, this means you do not get a product based on any typical values described in a data sheet, we deliver our products with measurement protocols. Unfortunately I cannot upload pictures otherwise I would upload a block diagram picture with the results of the two preamps I have built for AE.
    By the way the output noise is 36µV A-weighted. All my measurements are true.
  • I finally put the Trinity on a proper platform and have a longer balanced tonearm cable (from Trinity) that fits. A few additional thoughts 1)The benefits of balanced connection (at least in this case) is obvious. Originally I used a single-ended tonearm cable (with adapter plugs) -- this is a very very good (and expensive) tonearm cable but when I swapped it with the balanced Trinity cable the latter was far superior 2) The dynamics are just astonishing; real astonishing. 3)The noise floor is really low. I think because of this my wife and I suddenly heard more details from a LP that we played a thousand times. Quite unbelievable. Sometimes more resolution and details are not good, but this time it is and decisively so.

    Different people listen to analog for different reasons. I was primarily attracted by the musicality, rhythm and the tonal richness. But this phono brings me superb resolution on top of all these. Superb!
  • Cassph,

    I agree with your assessment on the Trinity phono. Dynamic contrasts are excellent. I think balance operation is a must for phono application. 我特別訂了一條绝對創造的"添"臂線, 令整體表現再一次昇華.

    Jeff
  • Dear all,
    It is nice to hear that you like my balanced approach. From my point of view the coil in a phono-cartridge is a naturally balanced system, even if some designers have a different opinion. 20 years ago I have designed a couple of professional tape head preamplifiers. The fully balanced design was always much better than the single ended. As I started the design of the phono preamp it was logical that only a balanced preamp makes sense for me. But a balanced system makes only sense, if all other components are also well balanced. That was the reason why I designed my own “phono cable”. It gives me the way to design a balanced system at least up to the tone arm connector. J told me the most costumers have hard wired tone arms without the DIN connector, but he was open to try my approach so I have put some TRINITY phono cables in each flight case. This phono cable itself is based on a custom made cable I normally use in our sensor products. The preamp itself has no ground connections. The signal is “floating” and no ground noise can disturb the sound. If you run the TRINITY phono single ended you will short-circuit 6 input stages from the 12! Only in the balanced configuration you get the best of the best. I have updated our website with your measurement results:

    http://gte-audio.de/pdf/TRINITY-Phono-AE.pdf
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