Having taken this long for it to materialize, I think we're allowed a little bit of hyperbole. Customer orders satisfied, we now have our demo unit settling in. It might not look imposing, but it is awfully good.

We knew from our open day that the Naim Superline (it's their reference level phono stage) would be a cracker, but hands-on with it was still a surprise. Even without a power supply of it's own and powered from the pre-amp, it is superb. The loading adjustments allow you to get the best from a wide range of MC cartridges.

Adding HiCap or Supercap, Hi-Line, Power line, all enhance its ability further. Sneaky feeling that this £1650 stage could turn out to be the cheapest part of the chain!

A few days in, and we've experimented a little more. Fed its power from the Naim 552 pre-amp, this is indeed a very fine thing. The cartridge loading adjustments (via plug-in) seem far more effective than dip switch adjustments on other stages. Dynavectors and Lyras require completely different settings, but you can optomise both.

Adding a Supercap power supply(fed via burndy lead) increases scale and resolution quite dramatically. Replace a standard 4pin to 5 grey lead with a Hi-Line lead and the nearest parallel is of the system going active.

Arcam, ATC, Audio Technica, Creek, Chord Company, Eichmann, Dynavector, Epos, Focal / JM Labs, Grado headphones, Harbeth, Hutter

Isoblue (and special branch), Kudos Audio, Lyngdorf, Lyra, Michell Engineering, Naim Audio, Neat Acoustics, Nordost, Origin Live, Ortofon, Nottingham Analogue, Partington, Primare, Rega, Roksan, Sim2, Graham Slee, Shahinian, Something Solid, Stands Unique, Stax Earspeakers, Sumiko, Trichord, Wireworld, Wyrewizard

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