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"Well, I still have my records, but I don't bother having a turntable anymore. You can't even buy records these days and besides, compact discs sound better."

They brace themselves for the explanation or debate that never comes - inspite of having just disqualified their own opinion.

Depending on who it is, I might grab my old copy of Running, Jumping Standing Still by Spider John Koerner and Willie Murphy. I'll wave it in their face and say, "Here - you can't buy this on compact disc anywhere, for any amount of money." That takes care of that: Now they know for sure they're not missing out on anything. And at the same time, they're comforted in having finally seen me for what I am: an anachronism.

Sigh. On my last trip to the public library, lo and behold, there was the CD version of the aforementioned Spider John Koerner album.With bonus cuts. Okay, it's by no means a musical milestone. But beyond simply liking the album, I'd always thought it was obscure enough to provide the dodge.

Somewhere else in this world of "how we feel about vinyl," I'm standing near the counter at one of my favorite audio stores. A couple who dress the way my friends believe I should dress come in, and they want to order some belts for their turntable. They order several, in fact - and two (Grado) cartridges as well.

The man looks at the salesman and, as if giving insider stock tips, says, "You just don't know how much longer these babies'll be available!" Endearing, but a bunker mentality nonetheless. He fishes hard cash out from behind the Zig Zag Wheat Straws in his wallet, and tells the clerk to call him when his stuff gets in.

Everyone, it seems, is out of touch.

There are, in fact, lots of good albums still being made - records that do sound better than their digital counterparts - and lots of really outstanding analog hardware. New stuff virtually every day, including the subject of this review.

But let's face it: In the minds and systems of most non-discriminating listeners, and in the face of so many reasonably priced CD players, the average record playing rig - which was the premier source for so many decades - has a hard time supporting itself as a viable format. Not to mention that the corporate giants have all abandoned the format. Lemmings.

So when Artie told me he'd spoken with Nelson Pass at the last CES, and that Pass Labs had a brand new phono stage there on static display, I sat right down and sent them some e-mail. (By now I had also seen a pretty good product description of the Aleph Ono phono stage on the Pass Labs website.) I began a weekly correspondence with the operations manager, Joe Sammut, mostly concerning when I'd get to hear the Aleph Ono. Actually, I downright bugged him.

Many months later, I got it: 38 pounds of black box, with nothing but a single blue LED on the front panel. It's big, it's heavy, it will break your foot if you drop it. It's the work of Wayne Colburn, who engineered the piece over two years' time, relying on extensive listening tests "in competition with the most highly regarded phono stages on the market."

Technically speaking, the Aleph Ono is one impressive unit. The onboard power supply uses a Tortran shielded toroidal transformer, supplying some 80volts - which is then passively RC filtered and actively rectified 'n' regulated to 60 volts DC before being passively filtered again fore each channel. The power supply also contains no fewer than twelve big 1000 mF capacitors.

Quoting from the owner's manual: The preamplifier has very low distortion and very high output; maximum harmonic distortion is less than .05 percent at outputs of 20 volts RMS or less. In fact, the Aleph Ono is adjustable up to 76 dB of gain at 1kHz. I don't think it ever once called upon the services of the active stages of my reference Aleph L preamplifier so all you passive preamp people, take note. This will work in your system.

There are two sets of  RCA inputs on the back: one for moving-magnet cartridges, the other for moving-coil. Cartridge loading is adjusted via chassis-mounted DIP switches: Moving-magnets can be loaded from 0 to 650 pico farads in100 picofarad increments, and there's space for two load positions you can install yourself; moving-coils can be loaded from 5 to 1000 to 47 kOhms, with a total of 256 value Options. Let's get this right out of the way: I have no intention of testing each and every setting. Also on the back are RCA and (balanced) XLR outputs; an EIA electrical socket and a grounding post. Those of you astute in phonography will note the absence of - well I'll get to it...

I used both the stock power cord and a Discovery Cable AC cord during the review and I wired the Aleph Ono into my system using Discovery Plus Four interconnects. My primary cartridge is a Clearaudio Gamma S moving-coil type - which has not only survived a number of changes to my system but actually evolved itself: My original met with an unfortunate accident, and when the replacement arrived, there on the box was a little gold sticker proclaiming that the Gamma S is now wired with GOLD! Exciting times in the Shedlock household.

The Aleph Ono is set up at the factory for moving coils, but I changed the loading from I Ohms to 47 kOhms per the directions for the Gamma S cartridge.The very first record I played was the Mobile Fidelity pressing of the Muddy Waters album Folk Singer. Stunning is an appropriate adjective, I think: The midrange clarity and truth of timbre were unprecedented in my living room. I sat there with a big, stupid grin on my face - and the darn thing wasn't even warmed up yet.

By the way, this album also has some wide dynamic leaps, and the Aleph Ono handled them effortlessly. No sense of strain, no compression just pure, unruffled explosiveness.

Next up was Paul Simon's There Goes Rhymin' Simon. This album has lots of fairly intricate changes, in addition to which things tend to move along at a pretty good clip. If there was anything wrong with the pacing I should have heard it here, but all I heard was clear, lucid music - driven when drove, and with a particularly good rendering of the extreme high frequencies. "They've got to be kidding," I thought to myself. "Stone cold out of the box, no warm-up no break-in, and the Aleph Ono is just loping along, making the very best music I've ever heard in this house." Transparent? The Aleph Ono sets a new standard. The music arises out of nowhere and with a huge, wide open sense of space. There simply isn't a hint of hardware in this sound.

The transparency is supported to a large degree by the quietness of the Ono. Pick a cliche for quietness. (I know: I'm the reviewer and I'm supposed to do the cliche-ing.) Quiet I as grave, quiet as a vault, music emanating from a black background, etc., etc. How about: You have to turn the volume up much higher than normal walk across the room, and put your ear right up to the speaker to hear noise from this phono stage?

On the non-moving-coil side, I used the recently reviewed Grado Reference Platinum cartridge installed in a Sota Comet, and I got hum. Lots of it, and loud. A quick switch to a circa-1984 direct-drive, and no hum. But no performance either. I finally resolved the problem with a single shorting plug in the unused moving-coil input, and was then able to proceed using the Comet.

I don't intend to do an exhaustive comparison here, although on the other hand, it's not enough just to say, "The Grado works." But it does work, and quite well. The Grado has a much warmer sound - particularly in bass where it may be a bit overly endowed. For its part, the Clearaudio has an easier time with bass transients - it exhibits good "pressure development" and decay. The Grado tends to swell more slowly, building a big pressure wave at the expense of some definition - my biggest criticism of it. Overall, the Reference Platinum is a good performer with a somewhat warmer, less immediate presentation than the Gamma S. When it was all dialed in, there were recordings that the more forgiving nature of the Grado made more listenable. (Example: On Robert Lucas's "Layaway," his gravelly vocals occasionally benefited greatly.)

I suspect that even my Rega/Clearaudio combination is not making full use of the potential of the Aleph Ono. Conversely, I am confident that I'm getting every penny's worth out of the combination through the Aleph Ono. And it bears noting that price-matching of the three components (Rega Planar 3 at $695, Clearaudio Gamma S at $850, and the Aleph Ono at $2000 yields much better results than you could achieve using the same price ratios in a digital rig.

The Aleph Ono has better speed, transparency, dynamics, and low level resolution when played with the Rega/Clearaudio than my comparatively very expensive digital front end. With the sole exception of ultimate bass extension, it leaves the digital a distant second in terms of rendering an involving, dimensional musical event in the living room.

Talk about the discovery factor! Yes, the Aleph Ono invites experimentation with musical formats, but it won't just have you rifling through your records for never-before enjoyed nuances. It will drive you to get up early on weekends and go looking through garage sales, flea markets, and used record stores. Its level of musical satisfaction reduces the chores of cleaning a record to a mere trifle.

Obviously, Wayne Colburn and the people at Pass Laboratories have put in their time on what appears to be a labor of love.They've succeeded in building all kinds of flexibility for all manner of cartridges; an awesome power supply; and, most important, an unbelievably neutral and engaging component. Virtually years in the making, it is a veritable Cecil B. DeMille of a hi-fi project.

So, where's the polarity switch? You could have put it on a simple toggle on the back! That's my only gripe, the one I'd said I'd get to later. Okay, so some people could also argue that there should be a mono switch. I have some mono recordings, but I am less vehement about that than an inversion switch.

Overall, the Aleph Ono is the best phono stage I have ever heard; I cannot fault its ability to make music. In trying to rank it with other of the world's phono stages, I can say that I have owned and lived with two other highly regarded phono stages that might serve as benchmarks: the Sonic Frontiers (tubes) costing about a third less, and the Levinson No.26 High Gain (solidstate, on the chassis of the No.26 preamplifier) which costs twice as much as a stand-alone, outboard-power-supply device.The Aleph Ono whomps them both by a long shot. No contest.

Obviously, there are lots of others in between I haven't heard, including the $500 cheaper Audio Research PH3, highly praised in this very journal. But I'm telling you, the Aleph Ono is a very serious assault on the competition regardless of price. Not inexpensive at $2000, it continues the established practice of Pass Laboratories producing components that define new price/performance ratios, besting others that cost a whole lot more money. In absolute terms, this is a value that will in fact leave you with a big, stupid grin on your face.

Quality: *****

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