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Gold Note PH-1000 and Gold Note PH-1000 LINE – New firmware for phono preamplifier

It may seem unusual, but in the case of the phono preamplifier Gold Note PH-1000 as well as Gold Note PH-1000 LINE this is possible, you can easily update the firmware here, currently the firmware v.135 is brand new.

The Gold Note PH-1000 is an outstanding phono preamplifier from the Italian high-end hi-fi manufacturer Gold Note. The Italians even call it a revolutionary phono preamplifier, because it is not only supposed to raise the playback of records to a completely new level of quality, but also allows for things that are rarely or never found in this class.

This includes the possibility of updating the firmware of the phono preamplifier to implement new functions, as the Italians are now doing with the latest firmware v.135.

A new firmware for a phono preamplifier

This may seem a little strange to die-hard vinyl lovers, because firmware updates are familiar from all the “digital stuff” that has long been part of consumer electronics. This starts with the Smart TV, continues with the wireless speaker system, the network AV receiver and ends with the streaming client, and with all these solutions, even in the high-end range, one has become accustomed to ongoing updates. But a phono preamplifier, i.e. in the beloved “analogue segment”, doesn’t need such a thing as updates…

But it does, if the experts at Gold Note have their way. As described, the Gold Note PH-1000 and the Gold Note PH-1000 LINE based on it are the most advanced phono preamplifiers on the market.

Outstanding features

Apart from the fact that this member of the Gold Note Series 1000 shines with three connections, i.e. you can connect three drives at the same time, this solution shines with the enormous flexibility in adapting the phono preamplifier to the most diverse pick-up systems or the most diverse recordings.

No less than 40 different equalisation curves are available for each of the three inputs.

RIAA, Capitol, Columbia/CBS, Deutsche Grammophon, Decca London USA, Decca London UK and Decca Mono 78rpm, Epic, HMW, Mercury, RCA Victor, Philips, Elektra, L’Oliseau-Lyre, Parlophone, and many, many more can be selected as presets. In addition, each preset can be used as a starting point for individual adjustments and these individual curves can be saved as presets. When editing, the display is of course particularly helpful, because the curves are directly displayed graphically.

It goes without saying that the impedance and capacitance as well as the amplification can be sensitively adjusted to the respective pick-up systems and not least to one’s own taste. The impedance can be adjusted in twelve steps between 10 Ohm and 100 kOhm, the capacitance in six steps between 100 pF and 1,000 pF. The amplification is 65 dB for MC pick-up systems and 40 dB for MM pick-up systems, but can be fine-tuned in seven steps.

Of course, a subsonic filter can be switched on, it is possible to choose between mono and stereo, and the left and right channels can also be swapped.

More flexibility is hardly possible…

It is clear that this is a truly immensely flexible solution that actually offers every conceivable type of play.

And there is still room for expansion, not only through external power supplies or tube output stages, but also quite simply through firmware updates.

Firmware v.135 with detail improvements

The now available firmware v.135 for the Gold Note PH-1000 as well as Gold Note PH-1000 LINE offers some detail improvements, such as newly designed graphics for the front display.

The navigation in the menus is said to have been further optimised and one or two bugs, especially in the handling of the remote control, are said to have been solved.

The update can be downloaded directly from the manufacturer’s website. The company explains in detail in a video how to install the update, so that even users who are not really IT-savvy can easily try it.

Getting to the point

It may be quite astonishing that there are now also firmware updates for phono preamplifiers, as is the case with the Gold Note PH-1000 and its sister Gold Note PH-1000 LINE. However, this shows that we are offering a phono preamplifier that is unique in this respect as well, since various optimizations can be made at any time and an already extremely flexible solution becomes even more versatile.

Manufacturer: Gold Note
Distribution: TAD Audiovertrieb GmbH
Price:Gold Note PH-1000 Phono Stage € 9.600,-
Gold Note PH-1000 LINE € 13.500,-
Firmware-Update kostenlos
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Michael Holzinger

Michael Holzinger, founder and editor-in-chief of HiFi BLOG and sempre-audio.at, has been working for years as a journalist in the fields of IT, photography, telecommunications and consumer electronics.

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