Musical Fidelity V90 LPS Phono Stage

V90-LPS – Overview

“Small but powerful”
STEFAN SCHICKEDANZ – AUDIO 01/14

“A device with all-round features that sound balanced and highly decent – excellent”
LOWBEATS 01/16

“Increased dynamics, a silky, balanced high-pitched range and a clean, wide-ranging image”
MINT 08/17

“Dynamics, tonality, playfulness? Yes!”
STEREO 12/13

The V90-LPS is a modestly priced, very high performance MM/MC phono stage with superb technical performance.

In our opinion, there are five critical areas where a phono stage must achieve excellence:

RIAA correction
Correction above 20 kHz
Low distortion
Low noise
Good overload margin
The V90-LPS has extremely accurate RIAA correction and that extends up to 80 kHz and beyond. That may sound extreme, but there is a good deal of information above 20 kHz that needs correction. If it isn’t corrected, it will show itself as ringing and overshoot.

The V90-LPS’s distortion is very low. Noise ratio is extremely low and all but inaudible.

Overload margin is easily adequate for any current cartridge.

All in all, the V90-LPS accomplishes everything necessary for a phono stage.

There are many phono stages that are far more expensive and make extraordinary claims for their performance. In contrast, the modest V90-LPS just gets on with the job of doing everything you could reasonably expect from a phono stage.

If you want top notch performance, and don’t care about the alleged conferred status of buying a high-priced product that offers no better performance than the V90-LPS, then we are of a like mind.

Technical data

Performance

• Input impedance: 47kOhm (MM), 100Ohm (MC)
• Input capacitance: 100pf (MM)
• Input sensitivity: 3.0mV (MM), 400μV (MC) – for 300mV out
• Total harmonic distortion: 0.01% (MM/MC) – @ 1kHz, 300mV out
• Frequency Response: +0, –0.1dB, 20Hz to 20 kHz
• Signal / Noise ratio (A weighted): >80dB (MM), >70dB (MC)
• Input overload margin: 15dB (MM), 22dB (MC)
• RIAA response: +/- 0.25dB

Inputs

• MM: 1 pair RCA sockets
• MC: 1 pair RCA sockets

Outputs

• 1 pair RCA sockets

General

• Dimensions – WxHxD (mm): 170 x 47 x 102
• Weight (unpacked / packed): 600g / 1.1 kg
• Supplied Accessories
• 1x 12v 500mA DC power supply