Dino 0 Exposure m/c board 1

I bought my Dino phono amp about 8 months ago, as an upgrade to the MC phono stage in my old Exposure X. At the time, it made a real improvement and I was one seriously happy bunny.

However, the X died late last year but I fortunately managed to track down a virtually mint, hardly-used Super XV, so all was once again well in the Gromit hifi emporia. Today, I thought I'd have a listen to the XV's MC input just out of interest (I'd not tried before as I 'knew' the Dino would of course be superior ). Well...you could have knocked me down etc etc...the XV's phono stage sounds awesome - so much more groove and displaying detail which the Dino just seemed to gloss over. The XV's harder-edged and slightly 2-dimensional perhaps but stereo imagery (or what ever it's called) isn't high up on my list.

Tonally, the Dino's very sweet and lends a warmth to the sound - very round earth I guess - but I reckon it could be up for sale sometime soon. I really didn't believe the Exposure's built-in board was this good.

 

Naim's built-in phono stage blows the Dino+ away.

 

From today's evidence I'm not surprised - the sound of my system's had its life re-injected. I'm also reckoning my old Exposure X must have been in a bit of a sorry state - it went pop about a fortnight after getting the Dino so must have been going downhill for some time.

 

I preferred the Graham Slee 2 to the built in Naim phono stage in the 62 I've got. It's all down to personal taste I guess

 

I tried a dino/dino+, better than the project phono SE, but not as much as I would have thought, then I tried (and bought) the graham slee era gold V stunning and I prefered it to the delphini with large PSU, all tried with MM carts though.

 

First the Spacedeck and now this ?

How much improvement can one stand in just under a week?

Give my best to Bristol!

Cheers, Dex

 

I have to admit the Dino+ has greatly improved my vinyl listening since its purchase - originally had a Densen DP drive. I always had a feeling the Densen wanted a better cartridge than the ones I could afford and made the Denon DL304 sound soft and a bit lifeless. The Dino+ cured that big time.

I certainly don't find it lacking dynamics or detail - it currently resides on a voodoo air platform and is connected via some silver cables - known for adding a zip - so may be this glosses over some of the the problems you had with it.

I also upgraded the umbilical power lead which connects the 2 boxes together which also made a noticable improvement.

Still, having heard Exposure amps on several occasions, I wouldn't doubt that the phono was of very good quality - certainly the rest of the amps are excellent from what I've heard.

 

This was precisely where the Naim phono cards beat the Dino+. The Dino was boring in comparison.

 

Exposure stuff is so under-rated and so very, very good. I was very happy with my pre/power and certainly regard Exposure as out naiming comparably priced naim.

I urge you to try out some quality mulitstand speaker cables if your using naim cables right now, it makes a big difference and adds even more life to the sound of Exposure kit.

As for the Dino+, as I said in the other place, surprising results your getting nevertheless I will certainly be trying out the Lavardin MC card to see how it compares.
Without taking away anything from Exposure I wonder if your Dino is optimally set up for your cart?

Just found out no MC card available Oh well.

 

JB - I'd ditto the underrated bit about Exposure, but only the older stuff (the new kit's dross in my opinion - I've been there and the wounds are still healing). Also ditto the comparison with Naim kit - I came from a Nait 2 to my X which gave the little Nait a good seeing to in every department. That's not to say the Nait was bad...no way, in fact it's an awesome piece of kit, but the X was more solid, tuneful (yes!) and far less pernickety about what it lived with.

Interesting your comments about speaker cable - I use the 2nd generation Exposure stuff. I've used Chord Rumour (good for PRaT and bite but a tad whispy) and tried Nordost which went even beyond my liking for a bit of 'edge' to the sound.

Had a really good chat with one of the guys on the Chord cables stand at Bristol - I'd mentioned about getting some different i/c cable for the Dino to the amp, hoping to get something with a bit more bite (I'm using Deltec Black Slink at the mo) but mentioned to him that, just for the hell of it, I'd tried the XV's own MC board. He went on to talk about how Exposure had invested a huge amount of time getting their phono stages just right and that there was, at the time, little to touch them at the price. He was little surprised at the XV's stage being better than the Dino. He missed a sales opportunity but made my day.

Put it this way, having had a few more hours listening, I've left the Dino unconnected. Oh...(and seeing as I've not mentioned it for at least a day)...the Spacedeck just seems to be getting better and better.