Review: The extraordinary van den Hul The Grail phono preamp 

It's hard to overstate how much a great phonostage can contribute to the overall sound.

Hi Steve. Been watching a lot of your videos the last two months. I was born in 1939. My mother taught ballet and tap to mainly beginners. She actually used a crank up record player playing through a horn. Later she used a small tube amp PA system. This was all before the invention of the transistor. We had very many of the 78 rpm,( or was it 76), records. later I used the 45s, then the 33 lps. The first stereo radio broadcast that I ever heard was one channel on the am band and one on the fm. Until about 1958 or so, home audio was mostly mono with one speaker. I have always been a lover of music of almost every kind. My main expertise in audio repairs for a long time was just replacing bad tubes.( Started with the one that did not glow). Now, I am up to date, but not up even near your level, or the level of the people I see on RU-vid. Expect to enjoy watching you from now on.

For me, it's all about the music. I love how passionate you are about what you do

Love the Audiophiliac phono preamp reviews. More please!

I love seeing the reviews for the really high end stuff like this that I can hope to get to at some point. I pieced together my first stereo a few months ago using your videos, and am already hooked. I can't wait to keep adding to my system. Thanks for doing such an amazing job reviewing such a wide price range of equipment!

This is a very compelling reason to give this product a listen. I watched videos of him building cartridges and it certainly made me enjoy his candor and personality, now just to get a chance to listen to his work.

i really enjoy posts that give me two things: first is a “good, better, best” approach to equipment reviews by category, because we all have different budgets and sanity levels. the second thing is musings on recordings and how they made you feel & respond. This vid had both, so thumbs up and thanks.

Hello Steve, I have had the pleasure of meeting Virgil Fox personally. Back in that day, he had the 'Black Beauty' Rodgers touring organ which was custom designed by HIM with the Rodgers organ co.. An all analog electronic instrument with many 100 watt channels, subwoofers and large horns sitting on their drivers RAW on the stage facing the ceiling. The light show was also a highlight to accompany the music of Bach. His idea was getting young persons into Bach's organ works. I have most of those recordings in the library, enjoy (O:

Good job on deeper insight into product.

This was again a great review Steve! You conveyed how it made you feel when listening to this piece of gear, how it enhanced the music, and not only a frequency spectrum analysis. It's completely out of my reach, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the review!

Sharing examples of LPs brings these videos to life. I have the Stravinsky and the Lindley, both rarely played.....until about right now. Well done.

Nice intro steve, your videos have come a long way and i hope it keeps getting better! Love your channel

Thank you for including Stravinsky and the wonderful Soldier's Tale!

Great review, especially to boost me while building the Pass Pearl 2 diy phono preamp. It’s quite the project and encouraging to hear how much more a good stage can add to the enjoyment. My listening on vinyl is limited and my Debut Carbon and Ortofon 2M Red are entry level, but as each upgrade brings something better I may have to up the game on my source.

Hi Steve, long time viewer, first time caller 😂 I'm really enjoying your album reviews and suggestions. I've discovered so many new (old) albums that I never knew existed and enjoyed immensely. Keep up the great work. G'day from Sydney Australia 👍

Loving your vids as usual Steve. Kudos

wonderful new bumper / titles.

I love this review because I can see the excitement that you are feeling. I have had that feeling and it is a joy to have it and to see it in others. I would like to see you do a review of SweetVinyls SC-1 mini/phono. I just purchased it and am really loving it. I find its phono stage to be a big improvement over my previous one (McIntosh) and the pop and click removal is pretty great.

I never thought a ti-died t shirt could look so good. as for the pre-amp...I could never chase that level of quality down. great insight into the other world of upper quality components.

It is nice for younger folks that they make audiophile remasters (AP, Mofi, etc) because buying used records of jazz classics can be a rough gig and or pricey as hell. But the dollar bin is always a blast! Loved the enthusiasm for this product. Sounds amazing!

Hey Steve, always a pleasure

I appreciate your passion !

Nice review, enjoyed it.

It is truly amazing what a great phono stage can do to elevate the experience. Another great video Steve, thanks.

My record buying is similar to yours. Bought my first record in 1956. Still have it. Yesterday listened to Andy Fairweather Lowe. Probably haven’t heard it for 30 or 40; years. Such fun!

I am so with you with all this audiophile reissues, a good version is enough, absolutly! I will never understand why people buy different versions of the same record.

Wow 21k! My car cost 21k. It is great to know that some people are so blessed to have so much money to spend on expensive audio components. The older I am, the less I desire to get more expensive audio components, or other things too.

Great video as always Steve. How about a video comparing / contrasting a solid state phono pre-amp to a tube phono pre-amp?

I am so excited. I get to inject some information on this channel. The Winterland was a ballroom in SF Cailf. Virgil Fox did a thing called Heavy Organ where he played his own style of the Bach works using lots of bass. I found an 8 track recording when I was a teenager and was hooked. I saw him a couple times but those records are great. If you have a very good system you can rattle the ceiling with his music. His record Heavy Organ has so great tracks like the Toccata and Fugue in D minor that almost anybody can recognize but my favorite track is the Sinfonia to the Cantata number 29. Enough for todays lesson

OMG David Lindley & El Rayo X!!!! I love that record. I can’t afford the Grail...but I have a Frog! Great job as always Steve, love your stories

Love the new titles.

Great review focusing on the sound quality. Respectfully this is what your Node 2i review should have been.

Nice one Steve! BTW I loved your tee shirt. Reminds me of 69 and listening to Canned Heat !

Purchased my first outboard phono stage for about $375. Huge improvement than not having one! Will upgrade my way to a much better one but first I need a great subwoofer and that VPI turntable I have an eye on! Good to know that some high end products are worth getting!

Way out of any price range I might be considering, but still lots of good information. I learn a little more with each one of your videos. I am also rather fond of that David Linley album. Played it for my son for the first time last week ( he's 23 ). His eyes got rather large as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Pretty cool.

Ok...so after watching ,am psyched up to listen to Eric Dolphy Blue Note lp I just got today. Won`t be with a $8000 phono pre [Rogue Audio Ares], but ,am anticipating a good experience . Love the videos Steve. Thing I got from this one is if you like digging through old lps, from time to time you come across some that may not be highly acclaimed , but for whatever reason provide lots of replay pleasure. For most part its about the music, but the insertion of a different piece of equipment, tweak, or whatever,accentuates it, and keeps you hooked. Your videos do that also, so keep em comming.

Steve I'm enjoying being a subscriber of your program. Love hearing someone else that is buying music with less emphasis on the collectablity of the album and more on the love of the music and artists. Yes its nice to have a good pressing but as you know sometimes it is about the excitement of finding an available copy or something obscure with the memories and the nostalgia intact. Were you listening over your big Klipsch or have you moved on to something different recently. Keep up the good work.

What a contrast to your Bluesound Node review! The cost and inconvenience of vinyl playback compared to Qobuz steaming? I still run my old Heybrook TT2ii with MuFi phono stage for my vinyl collection, but I can relax more and enjoy discovering new music with Qobuz. And my subscription supports the musicians;-)

I have an old Acurus P10... I know it is supposed to be quite good, but nothing like you are hearing. Your video made me so jealous for something high-end to help my phono experience resolve to new heights.

This sounded like such a righteous step up that I wonder if your going to figure a way to swing it.Meanwhile back on planet earth I read Mikey's review of the PS Audio Stellar and I wonder if it's worth switching from an original JC3 .But love seeing you light up when you hit an elevated product

Hi Steve, I really enjoy your shows; keep it all coming. One request- in the future, would it be possible for you to list the albums that you’ve discussed for episodes where you used them as references to test equipment?

A great review a fine example of big audible improvements were conventional measurements wouldn't indicate anything long live vinyl play back it's all in those grooves man !

like you i have been buying vinyl my whole life [first album rubber soul]. similarly i also did the best i could with turntables, arms and cartridges. my best setup was linn lp-12, well tempered arm, kotetsu cartridge [cheap one black gold]. anyway the point i am getting to is i also tried many preamps and phone stages. after all these years my favorite phono stage is my old moscode super-it, it's been upgraded by George Kay a few times - first we upgraded all caps and got rid of the cheap jacks for solid gold jacks and a few other things he upgraded. second visit was to upgrade to low output for moving coil. well at 1 point i sold my turntable setup while it was still worth a good buck took the money improved my system overall and i started to build a new turntable system. i now use a AR AB turntable with a ADC carbon arn and cartridges i swap out a few. The main thing is through all these years i always come back to the super-it with high end tubes it sound so marvelous and juicy, don't think i will ever replace it. [1 last thing had to modify super-it to change it back from low output, it was way too much gain for moving magnet cartridges. sorry for the rambling.

The thing that you said about not caring much about acquiring the most audiophile, super-special, highly collectable versions of albums really struck a chord with me. I feel exactly the same way! It kind of seems to me that some (or really probably a lot) of audiophiles are more interested in some kind of ultimate holy grail, benchmark sound, much more than they are about really exploring and learning about the world of music. I like Sergent Pepper's and Dark Side of the Moon, but I don't need to hear every version of those albums, even if they might be superior to what I own. Life is too short for me to care about listening to the same handful of records over and over again, no matter how great works they are and how perfect some versions of them might sound. I don't buy records that are scratched up and I like ones that are recorded, mastered and pressed well, but the main thing for me is the content and not the sound. I'd rather spend the same money on exploring the whole world of recorded sound, rather than spend the same cash on a handful of expensive audiophile (or even worse, ordinary sounding but collectable colored vinyl limited edition ones) versions of classic records that no matter how great they may be, I'm probably already sick of! Plenty of old records that I've picked up for cheap are just ordinary versions but sound great... and some music just wasn't record in anything like hi-fi but is still great music and worth listening to despite the relative lack of fidelity. You miss out on a lot if you're only listening to perfect sounding records...

Would like to see more analog/vinyl related vids.

Great shirt 👍

Ah, Dutch! I was one of the first to have my MC cardridge modified by Van den Hul. Still have VdH speaker cables. Modified my self build TL's with his 4way filters.

Those RED LS50s are Hot. I have Black Edition, which are actually subtly sparlky under the right light. You and Herb spoke so eloquently I bought unheard. Transcendant loudspeakers.

Clearly you listen to the music as opposed to the equipment. This is refreshing and makes your review of the equipment much more credible than some other reviewers.

Steve, you really need to hear the PS Audio Stellar phono. This is one of those rare products that just gets it right. The fact it does so at such a reasonable price is astounding. I bought mine on the "Axpona" special and traded in my Phonomena. A great deal for under $1500 all in!

Hey Steve, just some background on WINTERLAND. I grew up going to shows there, first as a kid with my parents to see the Ice Follies! Winterland was originally an ice skating rink, and home to the travelling ice show called the Ice Follies. It was my favorite venue later where I saw some great acts - I saw Bruce Springsteen on the Darkness tour which to this day is one of the most popular bootleg shows ever, as well as the Ramones, Manfred Mann, Boston when they were brand new, and of course the Tubes and Journey before Steve Perry. My favorite venue, not too big, but it was a short drive from my dad's pharmacy in San Francisco. I'll have to try and find that Virgil Fox record :-). Was sad to see it be torn down to put in Condo's :-(. The end of an era in the 60's and 70's.

Hi Steve, I love your videos and have a question regarding this amp. How good does it handle mono records? Let's say early Beatles, Stones or Pink Floyd records that came in both stereo and mono. Will be interesting to know. Thanks for your daily videos, I really enjoy them and have learned a lot.

Hi Steve .I Enjoy your show, I did not realize to later that you have the same musical tastes as me.I enjoy clash, jam, and that David lynnley album is one of my favorites. That you like listening to the grill head amp on. /Craig.

Hey Steve, I really like the spin you give to all your reviews. Great to discover albums and artists. Have you ever tested the JC3 Jr? I would like to replace my EAR834P which I find too colored but I don’t want to flush 3 grands into it. My system consists of a pair of Harbeth P3ESR powered by a Croft Acoustics (too bad this is no longer imported in North America - this little hybrid is a beast - so musical!) and the source is a Linn Sondek with a Hana SL. I actually got a Node2i after you reviewed it; I have to say that with the right cables, this small device does very well. Good evening from Montreal

haha - love the 60's style intro - hilarious, though haven't you got a matching shirt? Wonder whether Stravinsky himself had some time in the control room? - To see him rehearse (there are some clips) you realise he has a heck of a set of ears - and quite an insight into the works of ...err...Stravinsky. Great bringing actual music into your review. Is George Martin the 5th Beatle - or the 1st? Discuss...

Thanks for the review. Would you review any pure class A valve phono preamp? If it could be with a separate power supply it would be much better.

Current signal also doesn't pick up noise like voltage signal does. I come from the building controls world, and that's where I learned about this phenomenon. Could be true in audio as well.

Excellent review. I recently got back into LP’s after 30 yrs and loving it. I’m using a Technics 1500c with a Denon 301 mk2 played through a Denon PMA a100 amp’s mc phono stage on Canton Vento reference 7’s. Amazingly quiet compared to the mediocre Ortofon Red it came with. No digital at the moment. I feel there’s great synergy in this system. My wife and I listen to 50’s and 60’s Jazz records while eating dinner, great fun. Keep up the good work, great episode today.

Great shirt

Steve, I love your new 1960s spy movie intro music. I agree, regular records are just as good as the new improved versions.

Nice to be a reviewer that can get that kinf od equipment to use, when its gone will you miss it?

I find it interesting that as far as I can tell the gain stages are opamp devices, not discreet - not saying this is an issue at all, just that this is the case for a product of this cost. And I am not suggesting it is overpriced either.

Steve, thank you for another great review! Any chance we could get a review on Darlington Labs MP-7 or their MM-6? They're under the radar J-FET design phono stages. Very nice options... I'd like to hear your thoughts on them. There's also zero video reviews on them whatsoever. Thanks, Joe

My Zyx cartridge is retipped by mr. vd Hul himself a couple of years ago (i live in The Netherlands, where the company is from) Amazing on my Linn LP12. He's a legend over here and still very much on his game.

Great review Steve! 8k is too rich for me at the moment and I am not too much a fan of the power-on button. I just got a Sutherland Little Loco, which is also a current based phonostage and it sounds wonderful at less than half the price of the van den Hul and made in the USA!

“DIG THE NEW LEAD-IN TUNE N TEXT” - NICE

Steve. Thanks for your video. I am in the market to upgrade my schiit phono preamp. My question is seems like you have lots of older albums. Do you only play them if they are clean? How often do you clean them? With your collection seems like a never ending task. Would you play a somewhat dirty vinyl on your ultra high end turntable? I bought some used ones and I'm very hesitant to play them. I just bought the spin clean to try.

Hey Steve, I have a Fluance RT80 turntable with a older HK Receiver running through a pair of Ascend Acoustic CMT-340 SE speakers. You think that getting a Phono Preamp (Like a Schitt Mani) would be a big improvment over the Fluance onboard preamp?

Hi Steve. I’m not sure if this is up your alley, but would you be able to do a review of the Ifi Zen phono? I hear a lot of good things about it even though it’s really affordable and it’s an entry level phono. Thanks!

The spirit and soul of music will never be quantified by circuitry.This is what music lovers really want.To be deeply moved.Just as a car cant be "loved" or a partner can't make you "happy".It comes down to what your soul brings to the music that determines its effect upon your essence.

I listen to my albums on a Dual 622 through my Sansui 9900z receiver which is amazing. Would I benefit from a phone preamp or just leave it alone?

You are great, I always you’re video, I have a question, can you help me please, I want to get a turn table, I am between this models, which one do you recommend: Clear Audio Concept MC Black, Marantz TT-15s, McIntosh MT2

Steve, have you tried either the Channel D Lino or Sutherland Engineering current mode phono amps?

I don't see why you wouldn't want better pressings. In many cases, getting a better mastering of a record is like going from a $500 phono preamp with a $500 cartridge to a $5000 cartridge with a $5000 phono preamp - and the cost is much lower.

What speakers and amp were ya listening too? Like reviews both expensive to cheap!

Co-incidentally I also use side 2 of 'Yellow Submarine' and all 3 of those Lindley / El Rayo X records as reference - setup discs.

I'll stick with my dynavector p75 mk4 that also amplifies current as opposed to voltage, sounds amazing, and costs $900.

Hey Steve have you or anyone else have any time with the SPL Phonos??

Hi steve Do you know a way to connect a turntable and a cassette deck to the same active speakers? Without buying an amp of course I have the turntable connected to a pre amp and the to the speakers, bow i want to cram in deck there Analogue audio switch?

Hello Steve, how much better is it than your current phono pre-amp/stage, great video👍

I have a Parasound Halo6 and my Schiit Mani’s kicks it around the block all day long

I'd read decades back that Frank Zappa had won some school music scholarship prize that allowed him to attend some (elderly, i presumed) Stravinsky masterclasses. "A Soldier's Tale" turned me on to Stravinsky, i love it, needs a good system tho & since then ive collected 3 or 4 & my favourites pieces are "Dance Concertants", "Dumbarton Oaks" (often put on ssme L.P.) "Concerto in D" & esp' "Symphony Of Wind Instruments".... (Strav' was known for saying he prefered writing for wind instruments & it shows there) ...are my favourite Stravinsky records. While i've completely gone off listening to my many Zappa L.P.s for over 2 & maybe 3 decades (i just can't be asked to put any on the t/table anymore) but the last time i did a year or 2 back, i thought i'd put something on i dont remember playing much, i chose Hot Ratz side 2 & i did recal 2 tracks but not overly impressed at all until when the very last track came on, i was shocked & blown away, didn't remember it at all & i thought "why oh why oh why didnt he do loads more stuff like this" pity it's only a 5 or 6 minute track, put it back on twice in dissbelief (guess he wouldn't have had the popularity he had doing stuff like that track all the time, pity) it's titled "It Must Be A Cammel" i hadn't remembered it all & felt that track alone had a touch of Stravinsky's inspiration to it albeit a slightly & slow jazzy Stravinsky touch. And i thought & now think "that is the best track Zappa ever did on any album any time anywhere, Ive played that one track 5 or 6 times in the last year. very few Zappa fans except the most ardent ones would guess it to be a Zappa track without familarity of that L.P.s side 2. I hated "Jazz From Hell" & learnt to disslike many others as i grew older "Billy The Mountain" a whole side off "Live in ...err, somewhere" is truly awful, i even hated that in my 20's when i liked any of his other stuff

Have you tried the Transcendental Audio Phono stage?

Current-mode phono stages are the way to go if your cartridge works with it.

Thanks for mentioning the price early in the review. You saved me about 13 minutes.

Hi Steve! Can you please post the Stravinsky LP catalog number? I have all the other LP's you posted-how about that? Great taste, sir.

I feel the same way about phono pre-amps as well as vinyl. All the ones I've had in the various receivers have always sounded good and I never felt a need to get a standalone phono stage. Can it really be that much better?

Gday Steve, maybe a bit off topic, but do I need a preamp if my NAD 3020V2 already has a phono connection? Cheers

I want it!

Had the Virgil Fox on 8-track, back in the day.

$10K for a phono preamp is insane! Never mind $21K! How much is "The Next Grail" gonna cost?

Hi Steve.Are you going to buy the Grail?

Funny thing about buying used records for me---for some crazy reason I play and enjoy used records more if they are not in in the best condition. If I obtain an album that is pristine, I have this obsession to keep it mint and I'm less likely to play it a lot.

Hi Steve, I've been mulling over the last few months about acquiring a Rega Aura phono, but after listening to you sing the praises of the "Grail", I'm now wondering whether I should push deeper and get that instead. I have a Rega P10 with an Apheta 3 and wondered if the VDH might be too much for it.

Lovely review Steve, thank you. I was first acquainted with records when I was very young as my older brothers (15 & 16 years older) had quite a few. I convinced my twin sister that the albums she wanted she should buy on vinyl and I would tape them for her - I would supply the tape - and that way it would sound better than buying the cassette. So that's how I amassed my initial collection. When I moved to the US I took most of my brothers and dad's LPs, they were not interested in them (including Beatles records). Anyway... I need to get a vinyl setup, I don't have one anymore.

Steve, very important to know. Are you switching to the Grail from the JC3+ ????? Are you keeping it??? I have the JC3+ and love it ,but is the Grail it twice as good? At twice the price?? My interest is peaked.

I'm thinking about upgrading my phono to: Gold Note PH10 + PSU10

Steve, I was sort of surprised to hear that you don't look at the best pressings of vinyl but get whatever comes along. As the initial source of the sound trip, I thought it would make a difference feeding a state of the art system, as yours is, good stuff, but obviously, it's not. Where am I going wrong? Thanks folks, new to this "audio bug".

Is the Grail 2x better than the JC3+ to justify return on investment?

Can you look at my question in the Before you buy your next speakers... episode. Thanks.