In 1981, long-time British rockers The Kinks expelled an manuscript patrician Give The People What They Want , a set of songs that gave them their initial bona fide strike in a few years, "Destroyer." Call it timing or prescience, the song resonated and maybe was what the people did wish after all. Predicting such events in the song attention is scarcely impossible, but the LP's pretension is great recommendation for any person seeking to capture an assembly - and eventually buyers - of his/her wares. Its recommendation Rogue Audio took to heart when conceptualizing the Ares, the company's initial void blood vessel phono preamplifier. Rogue boss and arch operative Mark O'Brien related, "It was a actual work of admire for me. we had a lot of feedback from vinyl lovers. Ultimately, we longed for to erect an all-tube phono theatre that had tractable output, but without sound - something that's astoundingly quiet." Did O'Brien and Rogue succeed? Read on...
Design Setup
We'll obtain to what's "under the hood" of the Ares momentarily. The initial thing that struck me as we unpacked the Ares is its size: the phono theatre measures 17 inches wide, 9 inches low and stands 5.5 inches high. Unlike my Parasound Zphono preamplifier, the Ares looks similar to more similar to a power amp than a phono amp (the Ares' comes with its own outboard power supply that itself is incomparable than many phono stages). Its 4 tubes are stable by a steel "cage" consisting of a substructure block joined to 4 arches that gracefully casing the tubes. To the correct of the tubes and protecting confine is a separable steel plate, hold in place by a span of screws. Removing the image gives access to a array of switches that capacitate precise earn and loading composition according to one's selection of phono cartridge. The Ares' front row has no controls or switches; all the connectors are on the back panel. The preamp sports a span every of imperishable gold-plated RCA outputs and RCA inputs and a education lug, along with two inputs is to power supply cables, a compound and power switch. The power supply hosts two "umbilical" cables (A B) that link up to the Ares only similar to XLR cables, gnawing and locking in to place. Each has a unique womanlike small box that functions only with its particular masculine counterpart, so there's no way to error whilst connecting. The power supply has its own detachable IEC connective tissue that connects to the finish conflicting the identical tiwn cables. Plug that in to an exit or power frame and you're about ready to roll. A small blue LED, centered on the bottom panel, confirms power to the Ares.
If you've ever struggled with feedback and hum from an analog network set up as well shut to loudness or speakers you know how irksome it can be, and infrequently scarcely unfit to remove all the conflicting noise. Not so with the Ares: Certainly the dedicated outboard power supply with its own toroidal transformer serves to head off exaggeration from the amp itself, but that alone is no pledge of still operation. So Rogue built in other safeguards inclusive a behind beginning coming after to bring to a halt any "thumps" when branch on the unit, 3 tractable earn settings to work with low, intermediate and high outlay cartridges, and 5 unique resistive capsule bucket settings. Not only is the Ares flexible concerning cartridges, users can moreover reinstate the two batch 12AU7 tubes with 12AT7 or 12AX7 tubes and run 4 of the particular tubes in quartet. This may be quite useful if you run a supply with a low outlay relocating curl or relocating iron cartridge. My principal turntable - the Pro-Ject RPM 5.1 - is propitious with a Sumiko Blue Point No. 2 relocating curl cartridge. It's a high outlay pattern that doesn't inquire a lot from a phono stage, and even though O'Brien certified the Blue Point is a plain entertainer he joked, adage he wished we had a more tough capsule to drive. Because the Ares is built to hoop such a operation of cartridges, we can't say that we threw up a strong dare but the results were still really good.
The Ares isn't tough to setup, but if you're used to only flipping a switch to choose for relocating curl or relocating magnet cartridges there's a bit more to the Rogue. Beneath the above mentioned steel image (access panel) is a network of switches to accustom high outlay relocating magnet and relocating curl cartridges (>1.0mV), intermediate outlay relocating coils ((0.5mV to 1.0mV) and low outlay relocating coils (less than 0.5mV). Each capsule setup is evidently with pictures in the owner's manual, with a print and arrows indicating precisely the location of every switch. Adjusting the parameters can appear a little daunting at first, but regard of it only similar to an electrical breaker box at home. If you've ever had to reset a tripped breaker, then you can do this! And it's obviously fun and lenient to have such manage over the amp. One last indicate about using the Ares: It should be incited on before the preamp and incited off after the preamp has been incited off. And since the behind beginning sequence, the Ares won't outlay sound for roughly 30 seconds after being powered on.
The Ares was my initial project in to blood vessel phono preamps, and we wasn't certain what sonic footprint those tubes might impart, notably since my principal amp is an integrated blood vessel design. we asked if there was any concern about the Ares sounding as well "tubey," to that O'Brien asserted that wasn't a problem. The key is to simply sojourn loyal to the audio electronics and let the tubes do their thing. Looking back at my records during the initial event with the Ares finds these comments, "Lots of participation and weight. Very significant sound. Not noticeably 'tubey'. Sounds more similar to plain state. Totally quiet." My initial impressions of the Ares hold as we outlayed a few weeks with the section and spun dozens of LPs front to back. Touching on O'Brien's query for "quiet," we can demonstrate that the Ares is the quietest phono theatre I've plugged in to my system. Following the recommendation of the owner's manual, we plugged the Ares in to the same power frame as my amplifier and never encountered any problems with hum or sputter - even at aloft volumes. And this was with all the particular rigging in really shut proximity: the amp was reduction than 5 inches from the Ares; likewise, my turntable sat between the Ares and the phono amp's power supply, only 2 inches from either. Still, there was no hum - ever.
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