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• •1510Tony Bolton casts his gaze at the new Sutherland 20/20 phono stage ...

couple of months ago Imentioned that I like toapproach a review withas little prior knowledgeof the product as pos-sible. Unfortunately in this

case that was not possible. To startwith there was a great big stars andstripes flag, and the logo 'Made in theUSA' on the box, and I happen toknow that designer Ron Sutherlandhas a long standing presence in thehi-fi industry, being one half of thepartnership that created the MartinLogan range of loudspeakers. Thesomewhat idiosyncratic approach tothe design of these speakers shouldgive the reader some idea of Ron'sability to approach a design issue

from anunusual angle,

and here, withhis latest product, the

20/20 phono stage he hastaken the concept of a dual mono

design possibly to its limits ...There are a lot of 'dual mono'

phono stages and amplifiers around,but I know of no other that takes

106 Ht-FI WORLO OCTOBER 2010 www.hi-fiwo .co.uk

that concept as literally as havingtwo completely separate units, eachhaving its own separate power lead,and whose only connections to eachother are the lid and front and backpanels of the casework which housesthem. Sutherland refer to this as 'twomono'.

The casework is reassuringlysubstantial, a lot of the I lib (5kg)weight being accounted for by the14 gauge cold rolled steel chassis,and the 112 inch thick anodisedaluminium front panel. The unitmeasures 17 x 2 1/4 x 12ins (w x hx d) so should fit onto most rackswithout any problem. The front isornamented by the name and apair of gently glowing pale orangeLEDs that signify power is present.The back is nearly as sparse witha centrally mounted earthing post,and two sets of gold plated, Tefloninsulated phono sockets for the signalinput and output. Power comes froma pair of 'regulated tabletop powersupplies', that seem to be a step upfrom the more usual'wallwart'.Thesehave an IEC socket at one end anda captive lead which plugs into thephono stage at the other. To do this,the inside of the phono stage has tobe accessed (easily done by undoingthe four plastic knobs on the sides ofthe cabinet, and lifting the lid off).

Once inside, the power socketsare located at the front of the circuitboard. This rather unusual approachensures that there are no powerleads running inside the shielding

casework, to minimise any risk ofinterference with the signal carryingcircuitry (or as the manual puts it,"on your car the gas (petrol) capis very near the gas tank. It is notlocated at the opposite end of thecar"). This is the fourth phono stagethat Sutherland have made, and it isclaimed to build on the knowledgegained in making the batterypowered PHD, PH3D and Hubbleunits.The idea being to provide anAC powered unit that behaves likea battery powered machine, forthose who don't want the hassle ofbatteries.

The power then goes throughten cascaded stages of passive RCfiltering using Wilma Polypropylenecapacitors, before meeting the IC gainstage itself. This is well specified withDaleNishay I% metal film resistorsand custom wound I% polystyrenecapacitors in the equalisation circuit.All of this is mounted on heavilyplated fibreglass circuit boards. Atthe back left of the boards are a setof jumpers. these control the gain(five options from 40dB to 64dB areavailable) and the cartridge loading,47.5 kOhm to 100 Ohm, again in

e steps). Once power is supplied. takes about ten seconds for theunit to become live, at which point-::?...-~ Iy un-mutes itself and

g can begin.

SOUND QUALITYThe unit arrived configured for100 ohms and 64dB of gain so I

::

started listening using the OrtofonKontrapunkt a on the ClearaudioMaster Solution playing AmyWinehouse's LP 'Back To Black'. Byside two I was thoroughly immersedin the sound, enjoying the detailingof the backing instrumentation. Itwasn't pushed forward in the mix,but had its own place alongside thesinger, making subtle little detailsmore obvious than they sometimesare. Here I felt that the vocals wereplaced within the mix, rather thanstanding slightly proud as is oftenthe case, making for a very balancedrendition. Indeed the midbandsmoothness and detail proved moreakin to that of the NAT Signaturebattery powered valve phono stagethan I would normally expect froma solid state device. The size of theimage was smaller than that of theNAT, but equally well furnished andspread convincingly into the room,with a feeling of air and effortlessnessthat helped with the illusion that Iwas listening to a performance not arecording.

Having aired Amy's slightly

and unassuming way. I found I wasjust enjoying the music, rather thanfocusing on my job of analysing thesound.

Several hours later and I hadmusically wandered back to thenineteen forties, via an eightiescompilation of 'The Andrews SistersLive'. These tracks were recordedfor broadcast on Bob Crosby's 'ClubIS' radio show between 1949 and54, so benefitted from the recentintroduction of tape into the studios,resulting in a true high fidelityrecording, albeit in mono. I rapidlyforgot about the equipment that Iwas listening to and got lost in thevivacious approach that Patty, Laverneand Maxine had in front of anaudience. They weren't quite presentin the room, but pretty close to it,with the orchestral interplay with thevocals beautifully displayed.

At this point I moved the 20/20to the upstairs system to see howit responded to the MusicMakerIll, moving iron cartridge on theSondek.After a quick lift of the lid,and resetting the jumpers to the

-- --------~'l -~ ~ SlJTHERL.A.ND I~ r - .-~ ,~W4I 0':"::_::====_:J ~ MADE IN • 20/20 ~ ~ ~

USA

melancholic view of the world, Imoved to the rather more romanticstrains of Renaissance's 1978 LP'A Song For All Seasons'. I'm nota great fan of 'long-hatred guitartwangling', but have always loved thetrack 'Northern Lights' since I firstheard it on Top of the Pops whenfirst released as a single. I rememberbeing hooked by the vocals and thegroove of the bassline which hascontinuing prominence throughoutthe tune. Because of this, I find therecord quite sensitive to the speedand accuracy of the bass. It can veryeasily sound rather draggy. Here, I ampleased to say, it had a sprightly skipto its step, and was so absorbing thatI just had to play it again!

Finding myself in a vaguely folkymood I dug out the soundtrack ofthe 1986 John Hughes film 'SomeKind of Wonderful'. Most of thetracks are a bit rocky for my taste,but I love the version of 'Can'thelp Falling In Love' by a groupwho rejoiced in the name of 'Lickthe Tins'.This starts with an Irishfolk influenced solo drum, whichthen is joined by guitar, flute andpenny whistle, before the vocalsstart (as you realise, this bears littleresemblance to the Presley original).The performance was captivating,being tightly timed and thoroughlyexplored, but in a very effortless

40dB and 47.5 kOhm positions andI settled down to Rachmaninovplaying his Second Piano Concerto,accompanied by Stokowski and thePhiladelphia Orchestra. The originalperformance was cut to wax on April10th and 13th 1929,and transferred to thisLP in the late 1950sby HMY. Even for the

period the recordingquality wasn't great, buthere full credit mustgo to the Sutherland. Itavoided the twin pitfallsof either sounding verythin and flimsy, or goingtoo far in the oppositedirection and trying tobeef it up, resulting in arather cloudy rendition,Instead I was left awareof the fact that this asan old recording, butthen my mind's focusmoved back to theimportant bit, the musicitself.

Anyone used to amodern performancewould find this onequite strange. Thecomposer's pacing ofthe piece is a lot fasterthan seems currentlyfavoured (or maybe

he was just a little more dexterousin his fingering of the notes -Rubenstein famously described theconcerto as unplayable when it wasfirst published in 190 I!) and I felt thatI was able to look far enough intothe recording to follow the differentstrands of the orchestra and beaware of Rachmaninov technique andmastery of the keyboard. In short, itwas totally absorbing.

CONCLUSIONLooking back through this articleI see that I have used words like'immersed' and 'absorbing' quite alot, because the Sutherland 20/20 is avery persuasive piece of equipment, Icould be hyper critical and commentthat the edges of the higherfrequencies didn't have that gildingsmoothness that only comes fromvalves, or that I have heard biggerand possibly more open soundstagesfrom other phono stages, but I comeback to the point that the 20/20persuades the listener in a verysubtle, almost subliminal way, of the'rightness' of the sound emanatingfrom the speakers, I felt it was wellbalanced, with a tight and seeminglyaccurate description of the soundsrelayed through it, and an almosthedonistic delight in that hard-to-define essence of music. I enjoyedlistening to the Sutherland 20/20, andI would certainly put this high onthe auditions list if you're looking fora flexible and musical phono stage.Although not cheap, it's surely wellworth the money invested in it.

VINYL SECTION

••••Well engineered, smooth soundingphono stage with a charm of its own.

SUTHERLAND 20/20 £1,999Musical Design Company

CO +44(0) 1992 573030www.mdc-hifi.co.uk

FOR- natural flow to rhythm- engaging midband- MM and MC

AGAINST- lacks tube smoothness• Iow gain for low output

MCs

www.hi-fiworld.co.uk OCTOBER 2010 HI-fi WORLD 107