EAR Phonobox - Phonostages MM/MC
- Replacing the longstanding, and long-popular 834P, EAR's new PhonoBox is still tube-powered and comes with MC.
EAR Phonobox - Phonostages MM/MC
Replacing the longstanding, and long-popular 834P, EAR's new PhonoBox is still tube-powered and comes with MC.
To remind you of the PhonoBox's great granddaddy, it was a small, unadorned box, ideally positioned alongside an existing preamp. Less slick than its grandchild, the original EAR 834P had a rotary on/off control and a press button for MC or MM cartridges around the back. Three ECC83s made up the valve complement, the MM input a standard 47kohm and MC a nominal 5-50ohm while adding 20dB of gain via an internal transformer.
Slightly larger than the 834P but of a lower profile at 180x77x310mm (whd) versus the older model's 124x95x275mm, the aluminium-chassis PhonoBox contains three 13D16 triodes, but you can ask for ECC83s. As EAR always selects its tubes with care and therefore stymies tweakers who want to root around in their spares boxes for NOS gems, there's little point in replacing them with audiophile 'unicorn' tubes in the quest for improvements, but be my guest. Once again, two small transformers provide the additional x10 step-up for MC cartridges.
Lamps: 13D16 X3
Inputs/Outputs:
1 x MM/MC phono input (RCA)
1 x line out (RCA)
Outputs:
Two unbalanced stereo (RCA) 5v into 600Ω
Efficiency:
MM Input Sensitivity: 2.2 mV @ 1 V @ 1 kHz (53 dB)
MC Input Sensitivity: 0.22 mV @ 1 V @ 1 kHz (73 dB)
Dimensions and weight:
Weight: 3.5 kg (black aluminum), 4.0 kg (chrome)
Length: 320mm
Width: 180mm
Height: 65mm
