Britain’s best known hi-fi company Naim Audio has launched a new high-end phono stage. At £1,650 (without power supply) it's probably one for the Naimists, only. It’s called the SuperLine and will launch in March – coincidentally some 50 years since the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) set the standard for vinyl LPs.
SuperGood
The design brief for the SuperLine was to “extract the ultimate musical presentation and maximum possible detail from vinyl records.”
Naim’s engineers have given the reference product a three-stage phono engine for the best possible results with moving coil cartridges. And in its literature the company claims the SuperLine delivers true RIAA equalisation (a standard for the correct playback of records) accurate to 0.1dB.
Although the phono stage requires an external power supply – and Naim suggests its own dedicated HiCap or SuperCap systems – many purchasers of the SuperLine are likely to already be Naim owners. They can, therefore, power the unit either from the (Aux2) output of Naim preamps, or from the new SuperNait integrated amplifier.
The newcomer benefits from paralleled phono and BNC sockets for added versatilit. And it boasts cartridge impedance matching adjustment, which is provided by four resistive and three capacitive load plugs.
Key features include an ultra low-noise design, sub-sonic suspension (using a spring mounted sub chassis) and 25 internally regulated low-noise power supplies.
