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VINYL AS IT’S SUPPOSED TO SOUND
Whether you’re dusting off your record collection or embracing analogue through the vinyl revival, there’s a unique experience to be had from the moment you drop the needle on your favourite album. To preserve the unique warmth of the vinyl sound, the Duo phono preamplifier has been carefully designed with a state-of-the-art switch mode power supply and a new surface mounted circuit board layout to reduce unwanted noise.
WHY CHOOSE A DEDICATED PHONO PREAMPLIFIER?
Due to the low-level signals created by a turntable, not all hi-fi amplifiers will let you connect directly to a record player. The phono preamplifier boosts this signal to something a power amplifier can work with. The challenge at this stage though is that noise can easily be added.
This is why we’ve designed the Duo around exceptional components that deliver the warm and detailed sound that’s synonymous with vinyl, all without distorting the signal from your moving magnet cartridge turntable. The switch mode power supply improves performance by switching outside of audible frequency to drastically reduce hum
VINYL. JUST FOR YOU.
If some records in your collection are a little worse for wear, the subsonic filter will help to eliminate low frequency rumbles that can be caused by imperfections within your vinyl. Combine this with the balance control for handling potential cartridge imbalances in your record player (that can cause a difference between the left and right channels) and the result is a detailed experience with accurate soundstage.
ATTENTION TO DETAIL
If some records in your collection are a little worse for wear, the subsonic filter will help to eliminate low frequency rumbles that can be caused by imperfections within your vinyl. Combine this with the balance control for handling potential cartridge imbalances in your record player (that can cause a difference between the left and right channels) and the result is a detailed experience with accurate soundstage.
GREEN AT HEART
The Duo phono preamplifier is green at heart with less than half a watt standby power consumption and auto power down feature if the unit isn’t used after a 20 minute period. This in turn gives the unit the same worldwide voltage for compatibility wherever you are in the world.
Tony Fernandez
Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2025
This is almost a plug and play unit. No fiddling with switches or nothing other than turning it on when your ready to use it. It automatically turns off when your not. Coming from a Wiim Ultra for a phono pre amp... Wow this thing sounds Hi Fi! Audiophile quality. Nice and clean sound, no bloat with dark background. You can set it to always stay on. An easy set it and forget it unit. Has two inputs. One for moving magnet cartridges and one for moving coil. You could use the empty input for other audio devices if you choose so. Great buy.
BrenoJosé Lima
Reviewed in Brazil on June 18, 2024
O alva duo amplificador phono trouxe muita clareza e definição ao meu sistema de som. O incremento na qualidade é percptível, além do torná-lo muito agradável.
SalseroYQue
Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2024
I connected my turntable to the MM INPUT in the Cambridge and assumed that the output from the Cambridge will go into the phono input of my Numarck C3 but to my surprise sound was horrible, looked at the booklet included with the unit and found nothing helpful there, unconnected everything and was ready to return the unit but a YouTube influencer show me the right way, it turns out i needed to connect the output of the Cambridge phono amp to CD input not the phono input in my Numarck and everything sounds great now,
D. Glez
Reviewed in Mexico on January 9, 2024
Probé modelos de entrada de pre phono de las marcas Project, Nad, Music Hall y sin duda este Cambridge Audio es el mejor, por mucho: mayor claridad, amplitud y transparencia; a este presupuesto dudo que exista algo mejor; lo utilizo con un integrado CXA61 y una tornamesa Pionner. Disfruto de nuevo mis vinilos.La función de balance es una belleza; puedes encontrar el punto medio para que ambas bocinas se escuchen al mismo nivel.
tacticalmike
Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2023
Many of you may be thinking price? Yeah it ain’t 50 bucks. What it is, is a nice preamp that will make a good source sound better. works on both magnetic and ceramic cartridges. Headphone output is 10 watts so don’t be thinking that you can plug your headphones in and listen to your vinyl without a proper amp. It does have a headphone volume control. Pretty much a magic little box that turns your vinyl into beautiful sound. I have a Yamaha amp that’s Nothing special but sounds great! I don’t really know what else to say about it except I’m very happy with my purchase. It came quickly. It’s high-quality stuff at a not so high quality price very very satisfied would definitely buy again if I needed to. Oh yeah, the packaging was excellent. It even came in a little bag. That’s a nice little flourish. Buy it.
knos
Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2023
So this was an upgrade for me from an integrated pre-amp. I am a headphone listener so this is running into a Topping A90D headphone amp that drives a pair of custom Sennheiser HD 600 plugged into balanced XLR.Upon getting this today I set about getting it set up and wired in. Once complete pulled out my OG copy of Michael Jackson's "Off the Wall", put my headphones on, and turned everything on at which point I was immediately met with a horribly unpleasant high pitched hum. I was SOOOO bummed, I had read all the reviews including those talking about hum issues. But I also knew I'm not your average bear and I always approach things with a "where there is an effect there is a cause" mentality, so I set about solving the issue before just returning the unit.First I triple checked all my connections, nope. Then I moved to adjusting my ground wire, nuh-uh. Next I made a new ground wire in case the old one I made a long time ago had failed somewhere at a connector. New wire in, no change. Then I decided to try plugging the amp directly into the wall instead of a power strip, no change. Next tried moving my headphone amp away, same outcome.In a final fit of figuring this out I plugged my TT, headphone amp, and Alva Duo into a separate power strip from everything else and started turning things off in my office. Imagine my surprise when after turning off the Govee light strip under my desk, THE HUM STOPPED ALTOGETHER!!! It was the balast/transformer in my cheap Govee lights creating RFI that the Alva was picking up. My Hue lights are fine, just the cheap Govee light causes issues. So all I have to do is not have that under desk lighting on when I listen to my TT. Not ideal but a 1st world issue I can live with.In conclusion these kinds of components are extremely sensitive to RFI and when close to various other electrical components, they can be impacted. Since figuring it out I have listened through 7 records beginning to end with NO issues. This Pre-Amp is night and day for me and just a wonderful product. Multiple times I've been like "How did I forget how amazing this record sounds!" Then I realize they didn't sound this good before, the amp is exaggerating everything my previous solution couldn't!! The bass is deep and tight. Highs are sharp and "snappy". From trumpets sounding crisp to guitar plucks sounding tight, this pre-amp has just cleaned up and accentuated all my music's best attributes. I am very impressed, and if that changes I will provide an update. Next up for upgrade is a better phono cartridge to really squeeze every bit of performance out of my table. Happy listening.
Danny
Reviewed in Canada on October 30, 2023
Value for money preamp for turntable
Rafael Sotero
Reviewed in Brazil on December 29, 2022
Produto espetacular. Extremamente silencioso, rápido e perfeito para elevar o sinal do toca-discos. A qualidade do equipamento em si é excelente, é robusto e parece que vai durar décadas. Testei com um cartucho MM da ortofon e o resultado foi excelente tanto em álbuns novos como nos antigos e mais arranhados. A saída de fone de ouvido é um plus. O preço é salgado, mas é um phono para se aposentar com ele. Não pretendo ter outro.
AlanHell
Reviewed in Canada on May 20, 2020
I only have MM cartridge, but this pre-amp does a good job to bridge my turn table and my speaker amp. The build in PSU is an added bonus so I can use my own power cables.The headphone amp section is not as powerful though. Even with semi-portable headphones like Denon AHD7200 and Ultrasone ED8, you need to turn the volume nob to 3 o'clock to reach a reasonable loudness. However, the sound quality is not bad. Well worse the money IMO.
Clash Fan
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2018
I had purchased this preamp to serve as a “headphone only” set-up — to be hooked directly to a TT with no connection to an integrated amp and/or speakers.Unfortunately I had to return the preamp due to poor sound quality. The output was low and produced an audible hiss beginning at low volume levels. Also the volume output maxed out at 3/4 turn on the volume knob. Turning passed this point did nothing to increase the volume— just the hiss.I tried the preamp on several different turntables with MM cartridges with varying output voltage levels (3.5 to 5mV). All suffered from the poor sound quality, which is not present when using my other preamps (Schitt Mani and Project Tube Box).Instead of the Cambridge Duo, I am now using a Mofi UltraPhono preamp/headphone amp. The Mofi has switches that allow you select the appropriate gain (from 40 to 66db) based on your cartridge’s voltage output The Duo only allows for a gain of 39db for MM cartridges, which is underpowered for my setup.The Mofi is $200 more, but the customization for impedance and gain, as well as a mono switch are well worth the extra cost.I really wanted to like the Duo— Cambridge is a great company. That said, I cannot recommend the Duo due to the sound quality issues I experienced.Perhaps I received a defective unit. I’ll never know because I am very pleased with the Mofi and have no plans on replacing any of my other preamps.
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