Shown for the first time at Munich High End 2025 exhibition, new phonostage will grace Chord Electronics Ultima series of amplifiers. Conceived as a major step in transparency and resolution, the Ultima amplifiers were a direct response of Chord Electronics engineering team to their own breakthrough developments in digital-to-analogue conversion, a worthy match to extended resolution that Chord Electronics DACs and digital upscaling processor now offer.
The only thing missing, until now, was an entryway for analogue. Now Ultima will have a phonostage proud to raise the reference bar in decoding analogue signal from vinyl grooves.
The new Ultima Phonostage is expected to be in production later this year, probably in autumn. While the technical details are understandably scarce at this moment, the product shown first time at the Munich expo featured dual-mono (separate left and right channel circuitry) construction. It also offers maximum user flexibility with 3 inputs (each available as single-ended RCA or balanced XLR), allowing the use of up to three tonearms or turntables. This is of particular interest to record collectors, who play both mono and stereo records and need to have a set-up with minimum of 2 cartridges.
Ultima Phonostage accepts MM and MC-cartridges, has configurable gain, input overload tracking and a rumble filter for those warped records. Output is balanced XLRs and single-ended RCAs. Dual kidney-bean-shaped VU meters on the front panel give visual clue to signal level. Neat.
At this moment there is no price or release date info, but stay tuned. Phonoamp from Chord Electronics is worth the wait.
Written by