Review: New Valve Order SPA II Tube preamp


Category: Preamps

A giant killer phono stage is born !
Over the past 25 years , I had been in search of the very best phono preamp.
I think I had finally reached Nirvana.

Before the NVO SPA 2, I had tried the following great phono-stages :

Klyne Audo Arts 3.5,
Vandetta SCP 2T,
Tom Evans Groove + SBX,
Artemis Lab PL1,
Audio Research Ref 2,
Tron Seven Reference ,
Oswald Mills phono stage,
Experience the Music Kahn LCR,

The NVO SPA II tops them all.

This is a 22 tube unit from Greece imported by Steven Klein of Sound of Silence.
Despite being a tube unit, the SPA II is the most quiet phono stage that I ever owned.
Micro-dynamics are the best with great rhythm / pace.
The sound stage is deep and holographic as well.
The highs are extended but not fatiguing like solid state units.
It has the emotional impact of the Kahn LCR unit but without the penalty of hum associated with nickel LCR's.

I cannot wait to try it out on my other system with the Telos armand Ortofon A90 unit.

I hope to report back in a few weeks.

Associated gear
Saskia Turntable,
Durand Talea 2 Tone arm
Dynavector XVs 1 T cartridge
ASR Emittor 2 version blue amp
Genesis 1.1 Speaker system
hifirabbit

Showing 3 responses by sksos1

Thanks gentleman. Yes this 22 tubes unit from Cyprus has redefined my thoughts on phono pre-amps. It actaully has blown away my Kondo M-7 stand alone phono unit that retails for almost $30,000! It has now been sold and will never look back.
Enjoy and HAPPY LISTENING,
Steve

(dealer disclaimer, even for Kondo an expensive memory but really not worth the asking price!)
Lula ~ That can be done with either RCA or XLR terminations that you use in the back with different resistors. NVO sends with each unit a 100 ohm XLR input.
The input impedance of the MC stage is set at 1000 ohms when shipped.
Please feel free to email me at:
sklein at soundsofsilence dot com
Petermax we have the SPA-II/2 SE and also the new SPA-One SE in house. Yes the SPA-II/2 SE is better in resolution and beleive it or not the nosie floor has dropped but the ONE-SE is just unbeleivable!

(Dealer disclaimer)