Tom Evans Groove+ SRX Mk2.5. Mastery Without Robbing your Bank Account.
Now at True Audiophile
All of Tom Evans knowledge and precision at a price that's bank account friendly. -- True Audiophile Mini Review
When Tom Evans kept telling us he created this phono stage as a gift to Audiophiles everywhere our reaction was polite to him yet in private we thought, "Yeah, yeah and the moon is made of green cheese".
Then we heard one. Then customers heard one.
Ok, the moon isn't made of green cheese and Tom Evans did actually take what he learned in creating the Mastergroove and crammed what he could into the Groove+ SRX Mk2.5 at less than half the cost.
As one customer stated, "Its simply at a completely different level than anything else". And that came from a person who demo'd phono stages costing many, many times the Groove+ price.
New GY8 - premier UK review site
Tom Evans Audio Design – Breaking The Mould…The Groove has a long history and it’s a story of incremental but constant progress, an unbroken line starting from the original Iso and continuing today. It was one of the first products to demonstrate that serious high-end performance could be achieved without spending the kids’ inheritance...The Groove concentrates solely on performance and, just like a pared down, lightweight sports car, that performance – the musical performance – can be genuinely exhilarating.
Read Full (no kidding! 11 pages) Review here
The Audio Beatnik Review
Yes, you guessed it, I am quite smitten with these understated black boxes. I feel the Groove Plus Mk2.5 is a very complete and revelatory phono stage. It is the least colored, most revealing phono stage I have had in my system to date. It manages to walk the delicate tightrope between the retrieval of musical information and the emphasis on musical information. The latter is the more common way of making a component sound like it is “high resolution” which, in the end, makes that component tiresome to listen to in my experience. This is not the case with Groove Plus Mk2.5. It is simply more transparent, and it reveals/uncovers more information without emphasizing it. No small feat.
No, I am not kicking my other phono stages to the curb. I am a vinyl junkie and, as I said earlier, this journey was one where I learned along the way. What the Tom Evans Groove+ SRX MK2.5 taught me is that I was unknowingly missing information that was on that vinyl disc.
If like many audiophiles, transparency and retrieval of music information are high on your list, I would suggest you investigate a Tom Evans phono stage at whatever price point you can invest.
If you have a $1000.00 cartridge and say a $750.00 phono stage, for instance, you may be better served by getting a new Tom Evans Audio Design phono stage and unlocking what that cartridge can retrieve from the record rather than upgrading your cartridge.
Yep, that old saying is true.
You don’t know what you don’t know. But once heard, it is hard to do without.
What a wonderful journey it was.
Highly recommended for your consideration.
READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE
Six Moons States
"Within the second gain stage, there is also an active DC filter that allows the Groove+ to reproduce the fast rising and falling edges of music while maintaining a low output impedance to easily drive any length of cables. Like the Vibe, the Groove+ also utilizes error-correction circuitry and the application of psycho-acoustic principles in its design. It is a well known fact that the ear/brain is sensitive to changes in phase (time) versus frequency. It is in the ear/brain domain that the spatial cues are contained, which is one of the foundations for making some kind sense of what's being fed to your ears. To eliminate phase errors from my amplifiers; the Micro, Micro+, Groove, Groove+ phonostages; and the Vibe line stage; all incorporate 'active phase error cancellation' circuitry. This is why you now have access to so much more musical information and why it's become so easy to absorb what you are hearing."
READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE
EAR States
There must be more detail and riches to be mined from vinyl otherwise Tom Evans wouldn’t make the Master Groove, but as with everything high end you have to pay a high price for the last ounce of detail and for my money the Groove+ SRX MkII gets you very close to as good as it gets for a price that while high is less heavy on the wallet than many. This is a serious piece of kit make no mistake, it may not have a shiny metal case with lots of switches but that’s precisely why it’s so good at digging down into the signal, metal cases are not good for sound quality but they are good for marketing and sales. Ditto switches, the fewer breaks there are in the signal the better. It’s also worth noting that phono stages are like other amplifiers inasmuch as it’s hard to realise how much better they can get until you hear it. I remember putting a slightly rather nice Audio Note (Japan) phono stage on a turntable with a £50 MM cartridge once and being staggered at what came out of it. So don’t think that I’m talking about incremental improvements here, the Groove+ can mine real musical gold out of the groove on even worn vinyl. Don’t buy the latest remaster buy a better phono stage and reinvigorate your whole collection.
EAR Highest Rating: 5 Stars
READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE
Like the 20th Anniversary model below it, the Groove+ SRX features a more sophisticated design with a dual mono layout and dual Lithos 7.4 local regulators, providing an even wider dynamic range giving more lower level detail - almost twice the dynamic range of the previous model Micro Groove+ X - recently measured by an independent German magazine to have a signal to noise ratio of 108dB (A weighted @ 20kHz with 73dB of gain) and that was with our previous 7.3 Lithos version.
However, the Groove+ SRX version has an entirely redesigned circuit with an external power supply with our latest High current 6.1 Lithos PCB. This offboard PSU helps to once again double the dynamic range and half distortion of previous 20th Anv. model.
All of our range now come with selectable dip switches and here we give you a choice of 9 cartridge loading resistances per channel. 112, 126, 144, 168, 200, 250, 333, 500, 1000 ohm are selectable, and if you require a custom load then please let us know.
The gain is set for an optimum level to suit most current cartridges of 0.2mv to 0.6mv Other gains can be catered for upon request.
The new Groove+ SRX MkII is a reality check to all other Phono Stage manufacturers around the World.
Use this link to the next level up in the Tom Evans Phono Stage line.
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Specifications
Type: Two-piece, solid-state, MC phono stage
Phono inputs: RCA sockets
Analogue outputs: RCA sockets (balanced XLR optional)
Standard input sensitivity: 0.4mV (custom setting option)
Input impedance: 112, 126, 144, 168, 200, 250, 333, 500, 1000 Ohms
Input capacitance: 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 pF
Output impedance: 10 Ohms
Output level: 1.5V P-P
Signal to Noise Ratio: 124 dB (A weighted, 20 Khz
bandwidth)
Dimensions (HxWxD):
Phono stage: 65 x 200 x 110mm
Power supply: 68 x 115 x 60mm
Weight w/out PSU: 560g
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