Parasound has catered to audiophiles who prefer vinyl by introducing the Zphono•USB. The high-end preamplifier enhances the turntable’s analog signal before it’s fed into a receiver. It likewise incorporates an analog-to-digital converter with a USB port to transfer LP-generated music to a Mac or PC and converting it to digital media.
To improve the quality of audio transfer and digital conversion, the preamp provides adjustable USB gain control and defeatable RIAA equalization. The USB gain control and USB clipping indicator can optimize the digital record-output levels for the best signal-to-noise ratio possible with any given computer recording app.
The Zphono•USB has a stereo input for the turntable and two stereo line-level inputs for a tuner, CD player or tape deck. The front panel provides rumble-filter and mono/stereo switches, as well as a headphone jack.
The Zphono•USB is the latest in Parasound’s Z-series family. The product line saves space by providing components in a compact 1U high by one-half rack wide form factor that allows side-by-side component mounting.
The hardware will be available in the first week of September for $350.
This sounds great to us folk who have a load of vinyls in need of being played or just being transferred to the PC.
Thanks for the great review and do you know where these will be available at?