From the Studio Into Your Home: Complete Analog Control and Breathtaking Clarity
More than five decades of hands-on experience creating the world's finest vinyl records – and understanding the techniques, intricacies, and processes involved with reference analog sound – have led to this: The Mobile Fidelity StudioPhono MM/MC phono preamplifier. Made to bring you closer to the sound of the legendary Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab into your own system, this true-to-the-source phono preamplifier is designed with the help by of Tim De Paravicini, the engineer responsible for the entire analog cutting system at Mobile Fidelity's famous Sebastopol, California master studio. The inspired design prizes simplicity, purity, and precision – elements responsible for producing audiophile clarity, unstinting accuracy, and breathtaking realism during playback. Handcrafted in the USA at Mobile Fidelity's in-house factory, StudioPhono offers high-end performance at a real-world price. Unlike any other phono preamplifier in its class, StudioPhono gives you absolute sonic purity required to play back the finest recordings, including the world-famous Mobile Fidelity's Original Master Recordings reissues, which have set the standard for sound quality and precision manufacturing for more than 40 years and counting.
StudioPhono comes with selectable gain and loading, enabling it to match the specifications of practically every MM and MC cartridge available. Toggle switches, located on the bottom of the device, entitle you to fine-tune and adjust settings without the need for any tools. StudioPhono also includes mono and subsonic filters. The former is expressly tailored for mono LPs of any vintage. You'll hear more front-to-back layering, richer tonalities, and greater solidity when using the mono switch with your mono vinyl. The equally beneficial subsonic filter helps correct deficiencies associated with warped LPs or vibrational feedback when playing music at higher volume. No matter what kind of record you play, StudioPhono delivers the level of wide-bandwidth transparency and dynamic responsiveness demanded by the finest records. An external, balanced power supply furthers this aim by keeping noise away from the delicate audio signal and contributing to a super-low noise floor.
Indeed, every element inside and outside of StudioPhono has been considered in relationship to the sound you hear. Working in collaboration with several of the audio community's most respected engineers, Mobile Fidelity spent more than two years building prototypes and experimenting with materials. Even what on the surface would appear to most listeners as a minute detail was evaluated via countless listening sessions and tests. The StudioPhono you will enjoy in your home is the culmination of those painstaking efforts – and a component whose refined abilities deem it worthy of the iconic Mobile Fidelity name. As an internationally acclaimed symbol and purveyor of audio superiority, Mobile Fidelity would settle for nothing less. Neither should you.
"The StudioPhono is an all-star performer and does not give you the impression in any way you are missing out or making sacrifices at [this] list price. The StudioPhono will be a valued and integral part of your front-end chain, not just a budget component that is checking a necessary box for you to be able to play your records."
– Buzz Hughes, Hi-Fi+
"I was astonished at how quiet backgrounds were, especially on good recordings. Surely the little StudioPhono deserves partial credit here."
– Julie Mullins, The Absolute Sound
Prestige doesn't come easy – or cheap. To meet all its specific needs and demands, Mobile Fidelity established a new, dedicated facility in Michigan to build the majority of its products in the USA. While an uncommon and expensive endeavor in today's audio industry, in-house manufacturing is the only way to maintain total quality control and create products that live up to the exacting standards Mobile Fidelity established over the past four decades with music releases. The approach cuts both ways, giving you the security and confidence that the Mobile Fidelity product(s) you own is built to – and built to perform at – the highest specifications.
