Long Live – the CH Precision P10 Phono-stage
By Roy Gregory
On the face of things, a Spanish Soprano singing English songs with a French hybrid early music/jazz ensemble might not seem like a promising mix, but there’s a moment, a moment where it all falls into place. Sure the band has pace and presence, dynamics and a vibrant immediacy. It’s as entertaining, engaging, musically and sonically impressive as always. But halfway through ‘Strike the Viol’ (Christina Pluhar and L’Arpeggiata, Music For A While – Erato 0190295250843) Raquel Andueza shifts down to the minor key, takes a breath and almost literally launches into what amounts to a middle eight of vocal gymnastics to make any guitar God envious. That breath, the way it connects to her vocal output, the almost physical sense of in – and out – that it coveys, the projection of physical energy as sound, is so spine-tinglingly natural that I do a double-take. It goes from being a collection of related sounds to a single, contiguous and above all, human action and reaction. The focus, technique, vocal energy and artistic intent are bound into a single effort of extraordinary concentrated musical and emotional intensity. This is exactly how people sing and suddenly that ‘how’ becomes as clear as the ‘what’, the ‘who’ indivisible from the ‘why’ – and post-P10, record replay is never going to be quite the same again.
Spend enough time listening to enough high-end audio equipment and sooner or later, a product will turn up that causes you to suffer a sudden perspective tilt, reality will intrude and you’ll realise you aren’t in Kansas any more. This is one of those times…
Treading in the footsteps of a giant…
CH Precision’s P1 phono-stage has long been THE benchmark phono-stage for more than a few serious listeners and reviewers. There are those who favour transformers or tubes, play only mono or shellac, those that don’t play vinyl at all! But for everybody else – especially those to whom record replay matters – the P1, in single-chassis, two-box, three-box or four-box topology, has set the standard against which others have been measured and generally found wanting. Those looking for the best in record replay may or may not of chosen the P1 – but they were dumb if they didn’t at least listen to it.
When the P1 first appeared, it didn’t just perform better, it was different too: It offered three inputs, two different approaches to phono amplification, an unprecedented degree of user adjustability and ergonomics, a cost neutral upgrade path and – crucially – the option to switch replay EQ to different curves at the touch of a button (or the tap of a tablet screen). It was, arguably, the first serious phono-stage to offer stellar performance, real versatility in cartridge matching and user convenience. It is also the CH Precision product most likely to have found its way into non-CH systems, making it both a success story and a gateway product for the company. Even in this day and age, where streaming seems set to swamp the world of audio, the P1 phono-stage remains both a key player in the CH portfolio and the single product that does more miles than any other in the Gy8 listening room.
P10 – up close and personal…
Fast-forward to 2020 and the arrival of CH’s 10 Series electronics, amplifiers that pretty much re-write the rules when it comes to solid-state. The performance of the L10 line-stage and M10 power amp had well-healed P1 owners licking their lips in anticipation: you didn’t need to be a genius to work out what was coming next. Well, the P10 has arrived and it doesn’t disappoint. In fact, the most remarkable (but in some ways, least surprising) thing is the degree to which it totally eclipses the previously all-conquering P1. Not only does it garner the lessons learnt in developing the L10 and M10, it’s location at the very front of the system makes its influence that much more musically fundamental.
