Signals' links with Trichord go back a long way. As early advocates of the Clock and latterly DOB upgrades for CD players, we have been dealing with Graham Fowler for most of the last decade.

As the new wave of quality CD players have become more sorted, the desire to fiddle with them has diminished - certainly in these quarters - but our involvement has remained because he does make some very fine phono stages too.

Graham was the man behind the Michell Alecto power amplifiers, along with the Orca pre-amp and Delphini phono stage. These were badged as Michell products and casework design and manufacture was handled by Michell. Latterly, Graham and John Michell felt that Michell products should reflect the fact that Michell is purely an Engineering company and the "Trichord" badge replaced "Michell". The relationship between John and Graham remained as cordial as ever until John's sad and untimely death late 2003. Michell power supplies for the turntables are still made by Trichord.

The Dino (pictured left) is an excellent example of Graham's rational thinking. The acrylic box is non-magnetic and compact. The power supply is a small in-line toroidal unit that can be upgraded to the "Plus " supply at a later date. Mind you, you can buy the Dino and Plus package together at the beginning. The gain and load settings are adjustable via DIP switches located on the underside. Just turn it over and click away.

The character is rather hard to track down (a good thing in my book). It is tonally neutral and dynamic with both timing and sound stage as attributes. The latest version of the Dino now comes in a black, rather than silver, case, by the way.

This is a very fine piece of kit and we are happy to allow customers to try one in their system to find out for themselves.

The original Trichord / Michell phono stage the Delphini has ceased. It is finished, extinct, no more. Long live the Diablo.

As with the Dino, the new phono stage allows adjustment of load and sensitivity via DIP switches located on the underside. Getting cartridge loadings right can have a dramatic effect on the resultant sound quality, so this facility is very likely to be used.

As per usual we have managed to get rid of the outgoing model before receiving the replacement so no A - B comparisons have been made. This combo (see prices below to figure out which one that is!) has arrived and straight out of the box was . . . well a little bit underwhelming really. Safe, slightly warm, just too easy going. Five days of warm up / burn in later and - thankfully - it is a completely different story.

Even without the 'old' Delphini to hand, it is clear that the Diablo moves forward significantly. The level of detail resolution allows for plenty of 'never heard that before' moments and the resolution of textures and tonal colour coupled with lack of grain or glare give a very persuasive combination. To cut the bullshit it sounds very realistic with voices and instruments and allows life and rhythm to flow freely. It does depth and scale too, by the way, giving flesh to voices and instruments and reveals the air and space around them. Even more impressively, when the going gets tough it remains composed and allows all the individual strands to flow without compression or congestion.

Well done Graham, this is a cracker. Now to revisit the Never Connected options. Seasoned observers will know that Signals is the only dealership in the known universe to not like what it does. Maybe with the Diablo we will finally get the point.

On the other hand we don't want to be too predictable. . .

Prices inclusive of VAT @ 17.5% :

Dino II phono stage with in line toroidal PSU

Dino II phono stage with "Dino +" PSU

Dino II phono stage with "Never Connected" PSU

Dino + PSU only

Dino Never connected PSU only

Diablo phono stage with in line toroidal PSU

Diablo phono stage with "Never Connected" PSU

Diablo phono stage with "NC" PSU + special lead

Diablo Never connected PSU only

In line toroidal PSU only

High Performance power interconnect

£319

£529

£749

£225

£449

£735

£1095

£1185

£499

£35

£140

'Dino +' PSU

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

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