Mono & Stereo entitles developers to comment on their designs, but few take advantage of this opportunity. Dietmar Bräuer of Trinity begs to differ, and here is the latest insight into the TRINITY Golden Reference Edition MKII line. “Even though it is impossible to improve the technical specifications of the Golden Reference Edition, I decided to change the design for the first time. The background is more to be seen in the manufacturability, especially considering how difficult it currently is to get all components at the same time. For this reason, the original design was divided into modules.”
“The heart remains of course the in-house TRINITY amplifier stage which consists of up to 96 integrated circuits per module. 4 of these amplifier stages each form a phono and a preamplifier, respectively. In short, the analog signal path in a PHONO consists of 384!!! integrated circuits. As part of the further development of this amplifier stage, the output driver has been revised and now delivers twice as much current, almost 1A linear to be exact.
Here is a first photo of the complete electronics of the preamplifier. You can see that the modules are pre-assembled on aluminum plates, which are then screwed into the housing.
The construction of the phono is similar, only instead of the volume control a printed circuit board with the equalizers for the vinyl equalization is installed.
The phono has been developed a bit more comprehensively. The reason is simple, because the PHONO has a bandwidth of over 200kHz, especially MC pick-ups with bandwidths of 50kHz or higher are particularly suitable to reproduce dynamics of a recording in unprecedented dynamics.
TRINITY Golden Reference Edition MKII Here is a small selection of known MC with a bandwidth of 50kHz or higher.
1. Kondo – IO-J: 150uV
2. Ikeda 9TT: 160μV
3. Ikeda 9 MUSA 170uV
4. Allaerts MC 2 formula 1: 150μV
5. Fidelity Research FR-1 mk3: 140μV
6. Ortofon MC-5000: 140μV 80kHz
7. Ortofon MC-7500: 130μV 65kHz
8. EMT TU 2 Special: 110μV
9. Audio Technica AT-ART7: 120μV https://www.audio-technica.com/en-us/at-art7
They all have one thing in common they have a very low output voltage between 110μV and 170μV. Even though the previous phono works fantastically with these MCs even without a transformer, the wish was expressed whether a little more amplification is feasible, although the previous PHONO already had an enormous amplification.
In this regard, I had already gained experience when I adapted a MIC/PHONO for a field coil MC with 80μV.
Here the measurement result of the MIC/PHONO, which shows that there is no need for a step-up transformer. The noise level at 20Hz is equal with the friction noise of a needle in a perfect empty vinyl groove.
Such very high gain DC coupled amplifier stages need a very sophisticated offset cancellation circuit and that is the difference between the “old” Phono and the new PHONO. The new phono has an extremely sophisticated offset compensation circuitry.
Here a measurement from today what the new PHONO will deliver.
A 125μV MC pick-up will deliver on the output of the TRINITY PHONO 1Vrms. The PCB was not yet mounted into the enclosure therefore you can see a very small spike at 50Hz. The friction noise of a needle in a perfect empty vinyl groove is twice as high as the electronic noise.
The mechanic components MC, tone arm and turntable are the limiting elements, but not the electronic.
The first 10 devices will be shipped next month to my brand ambassador in HK & China, who forced this development.”
If you are interested in the topic of vinyl, here is a 20-year-old article that I find particularly worth reading.