At a recent presentation in London where various newly remastered LP’s were presented, all four mastering engineers – from different studios – remarked that the reproduction seemed somewhat less transparent than the final mix in the studio. When one of the guests mentioned that he had his FM 122 MKII Phono Linearizer with him and suggested to try to swap it with the installed phono preamp, there was no great enthusiasm nor expectations. As it was simple, the phono pre’s were exchanged anyway.
Engineers and listeners (many of whom had never heard an FM ACOUSTICS) were equally baffled to hear the difference in replaying the same tracks again using the FM 122 MKII Phono Linearizer. There was a lot more detail that this little Phono Linearizer extracted from the vinyl compared to the expensive large “reference” phono stage. Everyone in the audience agreed, there was no discussion; it was remarkable to all that the FM 122-MKII had a much more realistic and musically accurate reproduction (and at half the price of the “refererence” phono stage). The veil was gone, transparency and dynamic range improvements were clearly audible and this without any harshness to the audio signal.
After the listening session several of the mastering engineers said that they needed to get one of these….
The FM 122-MKII attracted much interest in the audience present. One comment said it all:
“I wish I never heard this…”.