It's little and black

It's little and black

If you get a black cube, be sure to clean it. Take it apart, suspend the board on rubber, put dynamat on the box, and get the resin off the board using acetone and a q-tip. Never really liked the unit until I did that. It never should leave the factory like this. I looks like someone was eating peanut butter and got into a food fight. I also socketed the OPA2604 to upgrade it, but it was such an astonishing improvement after the cleaning, that I really didn't care to right now. Also, Lehman products co are run by salesmen. Don't ask for technical help. They have a bad attitude unless you're spending money. Don't dare ask them for a resistor after shelling out $600. Also the specified loading of the cartridge does not necessarily match the selectable input. Probably the op amp doing that (SSM2017). Just use your ear, you can tell. In conclusion, the unit once cleaned, sounds good enough to disregard upgrading. The more reference your system is, the more you'll know what I mean.

Similar Products Used:

Vsrious front ends

Physically small, absolute silence from cartrigde touching the record untill the music starts.

None

I have upgraded from a Audiolab 8000A to an 8000S. With the 8000S not having a phono input, I was in the market for a phono pre-amp.

I have read many reviews, listened to a few pre-amps, X-LP, NAD PP1 (rowen edition), Rotel and none of them was any real improvement over the 8000A phono stage.

The Black Cube is a absolute pleasure, cannot stop listening to my Turn Table anymore.

Have to disagree with the reviewer below. Bought mine on the Web from a company in Germany (phonophono.de) and had excellent advice and service. Visit this site, they have some exciting stuff available.

Apart from excellent bass, midrange and highs the sound stage is also very good, depth as well as width

Similar Products Used:

None at this Price

DYNAMIC,FAST,EXCITING,FLEXABLE

ITS NOT TUBES

This is my first venture in to lp playback since the 70s.
So I,m not sure why my vinyl system blows away my Meridian
508-20, but it clearly does. I,m sure the cube has somthing
to do with the EXTREME increase in snap and dynamics over
digital. Actually EVERY musical and sound parameter is
amazingly better on vinyl (e.g. size of sound stage,
saturation of color, texture of sound, PRESENCE!!!)
I have listened to a tube phono stage,however and it clearly
shows the cube to be slid state. The tube unit was much more real and natural with vocals, strings, sax etc. But it was also noisier, less detailed, and less dynamic for rock.
Can't have evrything at these prices. I can easily work around the cubes limitations until I save enough for a decent tube phono stage. (I put most of my $ in the table
---Basis 2001 with the rb300 arm) You would do well to
spread out your hard earned money in similar ratios---
I'm having a ball!!!!

Similar Products Used:

NONE

good electronic design, does what it's supposed to do

I don't listen to CD any more, tried it, but sounds very bad compared to my turntable with black cube

I have used this box for one month now and already totally addicted, much better than my Musical Fidelity Rainbow preamp. Very noticable: extreme low noise, stable imaging of instruments, sharpness. Nice, nice!
I use it on a SL1200 with Audio Technica OC-9

Midrange and high frequency detail, low noise

User must remove screwed on cover to change load settings.

Although I am not a phono stage expert the Black Cube is the best I have heard in my system. It is the only stand alone phono stage I have used but has convinced me an outboard stage with separate power supply is the ticket. Very detailed and uncongested.

System: VPI Jr. turntable, Signet MM cartridge, Anthem Pre 1L preamp, Cary CAD-300SE Signature monoblocks, PS Audio P300 Power Plant, Klipsch La Scala speakers with high graded modified crossovers.

Similar Products Used:

Various mid-fi preamp phono stages

Low noise, good resolution and dynamics, resonable involvement into the music and good extension in HF and LF and setup flexibility

The stock power cable shouldn't be included in the first place.

First of all let me give a brief description of the equipment I use with the Black Cube:

Turntable: Mitchell GyroSE in standard form, no QC nor Orbe platter upgrade. Placed on 1" thick acrylic screwed tight onto a SoundAnchor stand.

Tonearms: 1) Rega RB600 (modified with Ortofon 6N silver tonearm wiring) with Kimber Silver Streak modified tonearm cable
2) SME V (in stock form but damping fluid switched to Johnson's Baby Oil) with stock VDH D-501 tonearm cable

Cartridges: 1) Grado Reference Platinum MI cartridge (4mV)
2) Benz Micro M0.9 (0.9mV MC)

Amplifier: DIY WE300B push-pull integrated amplifier with transformer input stage, 2 x ECC32 drivers and 4 x WE300B re-issue (2 per channel), rated output 22W/channel

Speakers: B&W Matrix 801 Series 3

Cables: Kimber KCAG w/WBT-0108 (BC to amp)
Kimber Select KS-1020 (BC to amp)
Kimber Select KS-3033 speaker cable
2 x Harmonic Tech ProAC-11 (for amplifier and Black Cube)

Originally I used the GyroSE with the RB600 arm and Grado cartridge. Black Cube was set at 47kOhm and MM, KCAG connected the Black Cube to the amplifier...

Sound was not very satisfying at first. Bass punch was lacking a bit and it could have been tighter as well although quantity-wise there was enough. Midrange was the best part which was smooth and warm probably due to the wood-bodied Grado with good resolution. High was not very extended and could use a bit more refinement.

Next came the Harmonic Tech ProAC-11. When plugged into the Black Cube the unit was immediately "transformed"! Bass punch and dynamics improved 2 fold with a very nicely drawn bass line. Kick drums were actually "kicking" instead of sounding like the drummer was on diet. All the way up to the top the leading edges were cleaned up and it was just more involving.

Later on I switched to the SME V + Benz combo...

Was I suprised with the Black Cube or not! It had no problem whatsoever keeping up with the upgrade. The resolution of the whole setup improved so dramatically it was showing a whole new aspect of the music played. At first I set the Black Cube at 47kOhm MC and the soundstage was airy and sort of laid back. Then I tried 22kOhm (which, coincidentially was how the Benz PP-1 was set) and all things tightened up a bit. Bass has never dug deeper in my system though it seemed to be less in quantity compared to the Grado. Midrange was not as "warm" as the Grado but it had more body. HF extension between the 2 cartridges was no match at all...the Benz was the clear winner in both refinement and extension. Cymbals just happen to be so much more "real", instead of sounding like white noise at the back.

It doesn't sound like I am talking about the Black Cube at all, does it? Actually what I am trying to point out is that the Black Cube doesn't really has it's own "sound signature" per se...whatever you feed into it (better power, better source material) it simply gives you an almost undistored view of what's being played! Isn't this what a good phonostage is all about?

However, I do think there is one thing about the Black Cube though - try not to use an un-shielded AC cable with it. Lehmann has gone through so much trouble in trying to filter out the AC garbage it makes no sense to try and use an AC cable that will introduce more garbage! In ths aspect I think the HT ProAC-11 is really worth the money I paid. It is quite neutral and provides good dynamics when coupled with the Black Cube. Again the Black Cube is really sensitive to the power cable change, I tried a Siltech AC cable shortly last week and the sound was immediately smoother and sweeter but dynamics suffered a bit.

How does the Black Cube stack up to the other phonostages? I haven't tried a lot in my system but let's put it this way - the others (EAR and BENZ) are both nice sounding units. The EAR is defintitely warmer and would give a more "live" verison of the same music, especially with jazz. The Benz? It's definitely sweeter and with any violin playing it's simply sonic heaven. But my vote goes to the Black Cube as in this price range I do think it's the most balanced of them all and manages to give you a good insight into what your source components are capable of.

I give it a 5 in value and a 4 in overall rating as there are better phonostages out there. But at this price point, I wouldn't put my money anywhere else.

Similar Products Used:

EAR 834P, Benz Micro PP-1

Very good detail, image focus, very dynamic, very good clarity (improve clarity, attack, focus, leading edge with Versalabs wood block before the power supply and good power cable I use Cardas hexlink).

I cant stand the sound of CDs
I am having to come up with more money for good LPs
Sleeping too late at night

My next phono stage will be the $12000 LCR-X1 from WAVAC...when I hit the big one...

My current system comprises of WAVAC MD811, AUDIO NOTE AN-TT1/ARM2(RB300 with all silver audionote internal wiring)/IQ2 ofcourse the LEHMAN CUBE PHONO, ALL CABLES are
GOERTZ SILVER (INTERCONECTS AND SPEAKER)
SPEAKERS ARE THE ELLINGTONS(SINGLE DRIVER HORN LOADED LOWTHER custom built by DSM AUDIO 20kh-33hz ), CAMBRIDGE CD4SE CDPLAYER.

There is nothing like ANALOG ...The black cube helped me realise this

Similar Products Used:

EAR PHONO STAGE