We were thrilled when we learned that the Norwegians from Hegel are now entering the market with their first phono preamplifier. The model goes by the name V10, impresses with a transistor circuit, and supports both moving magnet (MM) and moving coil (MC) systems. For both systems, the gain can be increased by 5, 10, or 12 dB over the basic gain. If an MM pickup system is used, the capacitance can be freely increased between 100 and 467 pF. With an MC system, in turn, one has impedances between 33 and 550 ohms or fixed 47 kOhms.
The chassis of the V10 phono preamplifier is divided into two sections that physically separate the power supplies from the sense amplifier circuitry. This, of course, leads to an improvement at the sonic level, as there is no detectable interference between the two parts. To be able to ensure the best possible connection, Hegel has also equipped the model with gold-plated connectors, balanced XLR outputs, and a solid grounding screw. To ensure that the phono preamp can work optimally, it has a linear, analog, low-noise AC power supply. This in turn has a large e-core transformer in its own housing.
In addition, the preamp shines with a subsonic filter, thanks to which unwanted low-frequency noise is removed. There is also an installable auto-standby function, which meets the ecological requirements. Low-noise, discrete JFET transistors act for both the MM and MC inputs. The moving coil input has also been equipped with four parallel-designed transistors, thanks to which it operates silently and stops any biased current feedback. The elimination of external noise is of course always important, but especially when sensitive MC cartridges with low power are used, the elimination of external noise is highly relevant, since they have a low output power due to the system. This fact was taken care of in detail by Hegel in order to achieve a particularly good result on the sonic level. On top of that, there’s a subsonic filter to remove unwanted low-frequency noise, if necessary.
