DS3 B High end Phono stage from Pro-Ject
The Phono Box DS3 B has a steel chassis which is covered by screwed aluminium panels. This construction brings very good rigidity and splendid isolation against interferences. Phono Box DS3 B is available in silver or black. Magnetic wooden side panels are sold separately
„B“ stands for balanced, directly from Pro-Ject announcement:
The Phono Box DS3 B employs a true fully balanced gain stage design. Connect your turntable either with the 5-pin mini XLR cable or standard XLR cables & profit of the balanced signal path. Symmetrical, or also called balanced, transmissions consist of a hot and a cold (also called + and -) signal. Both signal chains effectively carry the same musical information. A true balanced gain stage can now extract the final musical information out of the +/- signals and subtract, remove, all noise that could potentially be added along the transmission. As there are two separate signal chains, we also needed two individual amplifier sections.
The Phono Box DS3 B uses fully discrete audio circuitry. A discrete circuit is composed of electronic components which are disparate, individual devices, also called discrete components. Countless hours of listening tests and years of experience have shown us that even the very best Op-Amps do not tend to be so neutral, natural, dynamic or vivid. Standard phono pre-amplifiers with integrated circuits have a few tens or hundreds of components, but discrete designs will employ hundreds or thousands of components by comparison. Passive EQ After treating the balanced symmetrically they are added back together and processed by the fully passive and discrete RIAA equalisation stage. By keeping the gain stage fully symmetrical we can optimize the signal to noise ratios, giving the EQ section the best source to work its magic on. Fully split passive equalization allows for better impedance matching and lower deviation from the ideal RIAA curve. For the balanced XLR outputs, a discrete balancing stage generates a symmetrical signal, so you benefit from balanced signal transmissions again. The single ended RCA outputs run their own fully discrete output stage, served directly by the RIAA EQ.
Cartridge loading options
You can connect two turntables at the same time & easily set everything on the front plate. Each input settings are stored in the memory. Large ranges from 40dB up to 65dB are possible. A fully balanced design makes all the difference here, handling amplification levels this high. You can perfectly match it with a wide variety of cartridges and perfectly integrate it into the rest of your Hifi system, matching the volume levels accurately to other sources like CD players or streaming devices. Load impedance can be set continuously via potentiometer, a system invented by Pro-Ject Audio Systems. It allows you to seamlessly adjust the impedance during playback and immediately assess the impact of different loading options. This is necessary to find just the right load impedance for your cartridge. No other manufacturers implement this feature in this extreme way
External power supply
The Phono Box DS3 B is powered from an external adapter. It is important to keep all the parts which can radiate electromagnetic fields out of the amplifier range. This is the reason why we are using an outboard power supply. Due to legal requirements, this power supply must be a switch mode type with guaranteed stand-by mode power consumption 0,1W. An outboard power supply with linear construction is even better, because it can offer much cleaner power. When you want to manufacture such clean and really high-end power supplies, you have to use a transformer with a very low core saturation and preferably with shielding between primary and secondary windings.
The Phono Box DS3 B is available for MSRP 599 € (incl. VAT) at Pro-Ject dealers in April 2022.
