External power supply, two-chassis design

The PHO-500 is a moving-magnet and moving-coil phono stage built around a two-box layout, with the power supply housed in its own separate chassis. Isolating the transformer and rectification from the audio circuit keeps mains-borne hum and switching noise away from the low-level cartridge signal, where even small amounts of injected noise are audible as a raised noise floor or veiled detail. The result is a quieter background, particularly relevant for MC cartridges, whose output sits well below 1 mV. Frequency response is quoted at 10 Hz–20 kHz ±0.5 dB, with gain of 40 dB for MM and a high 100 dB for MC.

Cartridge matching via DIP switches

Loading is set on the underside via DIP switches rather than rear-panel rotaries, covering the parameters that actually affect tonal balance with a given cartridge. For MC, input impedance is adjustable from 100 Ω to 1000 Ω; for MM, input capacitance can be set between 15 pF and 350 pF to account for the tonearm cable’s contribution. Fixed values of 47 kΩ (MM impedance) and 15 pF (MC capacitance) follow the standards expected by most cartridge manufacturers. Input sensitivity is 58 mV for MM and 6.8 mV for MC, with one pair of RCA inputs and one pair of RCA outputs for the analogue chain.

Built-in USB ADC for Digit

A built-in analogue-to-digital converter streams the phono output over USB at CD-quality resolution, letting a Mac or PC record directly from the preamp without an external interface — useful for archiving rare pressings or transferring records that don’t exist on streaming services. Software such as Audacity handles capture and editing. Casework is finished to match Vincent’s tubeLine range, available in black or silver, so the PHO-500 sits visually alongside the rest of the lineup if you’re already running Vincent components.