The Emmeline XR-10B was developed to be a user friendly phono stage with features to overwhelm any vinyl addicts out there and to pamper its owner with sweet warm sound that the vinyl is known for.
The full, Dual Mono Topology, puts it in a class by itself, with an external dedicated power supply for each channel.
The Emmeline XR-10B is built of the highest quality circuit board, FR4 Material with Military Specs – 2 Oz oxygen free copper. The resistors of choice are the military Dale Vishay .1% tolerance, very musical and precise. Tantalum caps are used excessively in the design and are bypassed by polypropylene to smoothen the DC power. The power supply contains two toroidal transformers, one for each channel. There are four full wave bridge rectifiers, two for each power supply to generate the raw DC voltage. Four high capacity filter of 8200MF each is used at the input stage with poly cap across it. Four adjustable regulators are implemented to precisely adjust the voltages. At the output stage of the power supply, four 2200MF filters are bypassed by four poly as a reservoir for the DC voltage.
The power supply chassis delivers the regulated DC power to the main phono chassis via a 5 feet shielded low noise cable. The cable is terminated to a 1/2 turn lock amp connector.
The chassis of the power supply is custom built for the XR-10B with ΒΌ” face plate. Two blue LEDs are located on the left side of the front plate, one for each power supply indicating that power is on. There is no on/off switch on either chassis; the XR-10B is always on. The power supply is designed to work on either 110-120VAC 60Hz or 220-240VAC 50Hz . The AC cord is detachable, but is not supplied with the amp. When connecting the phono stage to the power supply, make sure the power supply is on the right hand side of the amp if using one shelf for both chassis’. For best result, place the power supply away from the amp as far as the DC cord allows.
The phono stage chassis has the same dimensions as the power supply. The front panel has three knobs for each channel to set the gain, cartridge input capacitance and the load. The big center knob is the selector for the three inputs, either three tone arms could be connected to the three inputs or three turntables. No need to remove the connectors back and forth, just dial the input you want. This feature is very well thought of and it saves a lot of pain going behind the amp to move your cables from one tone arm to the next, or one turn table to the next. All care has been taken into consideration to prevent any noise or hum generated, as the XR-10B has a pitch black background. The ease of dialing the load externally on the fly for each channel puts things at ease as you don’t have to open the amp and try to guess which micro switch you should depress for what kind of load. The fun of having the load at your finger tips is a great feature to load your cartridge with other loads to tweak your sound on the fly. You can tweak the bright cartridge with lower load and get it to sound much better and vise versa. The input capacitance of the MM cartridges specified by different manufacturers becomes easy to set as you have choices set from 50PF to 330PF that also can have an impact on the sound that you like.
All cartridges do not have the same output; a gain switch with many selectable gains becomes a must if you want to get the best out of your system. The XR-10B has six choices that will alter the gain to match your cartridge output and give a sufficient signal to your pre-amp. Gain should be set identical for both the left and right channels. IMPORTANT NOTE: make sure when setting the gain that either the pre-amp volume control is very low, or the cartridge is not set on the vinyl in play mode. Do not use the gain knob as volume control. Once you set it to the right setting, you leave it alone unless a different gain is desired for another cartridge.
The letter “B” in the Emmeline XR-10B stands for Balanced output. One thing so unique about this phono stage is that both of its outputs, balanced and non-balanced, are active. This means you can use both to connect to a balanced pre-amp inputs while using the other to connect to a non-balanced input, or hook it up to another pre-amp. There are no pins to ground and no switches to activate. Also both outputs are set at the same level of signal.
A heavy duty gold plated ground connector is implemented in the back of the amp for ground connections. It has a large center hole to accommodate many ground wires, also a banana plug could be used at its tip.
The Emmeline XR-10B is burned-in for over 100 hours prior to shipping and it comes with a 5 Year Warranty for parts and labor. The warranty is transferable to second owner and beyond.
Specifications
- A True Dual Mono Topology
- External Dual Power Supply, one for each channel
- Three Inputs selectable via front rotary switch
- Six selectable loads via front panel, one selector for each channel
- Six selectable cartridge input impedances via front panel, one selector for each channel
- Six selectable loads via front panel, one selector for each channel
- Two outputs, balanced and non-balanced, both are active at the same time
- 120AC 50Hz or 240AC 50Hz choices of AC power
- 5 years transferable warranty, parts and labor
- Made in the USA