The name Calon means ‘heart’ in Welsh, which is quite a poetic name for an electronic component that can make or break the performance of a vinyl-playing system. Make no mistake, when it comes to replaying records, no other electronic component in a system sets more of a ceiling on the sound you get than the humble phono stage.
This is obvious once you think about it. Not only is the phono stage responsible for applying the RIAA playback equalisation curve to the cartridge’s signal to balance the tonality, but it also has to amplify that tiny signal by a factor of around 5000 (with a typical moving coil cartridge) before a conventional preamp section can use it.
