I’m not seeing too much out there on the forums about the Lupe and so as an early(ish) adopter I thought I’d weigh in with my experience for anyone who might be looking at it.
To cut to the chase… I am very impressed. I have owned many phono preamps in my life up and down the price ladder. Prior to the Lupe, my favorite, in a class by itself sonically (and financially) was the Ypsilon VPS-100. Below that in the next tier were the Allnic H3000, the Manley Steelhead, and the ARC Ref 2SE, each of which had its strengths and weaknesses and each of which I could have been happy with forever if I were not insane. I’m guessing you know how it is.
After three weeks of a LOT of listening, I put the Lupe, on sound quality alone, in the Ypsilon class. It brings a level of insight into the music that reminds me of my favorite DAC, the Weiss DAC501, where a seemingly impossible amount of information is conveyed in a way that doesn’t feel editorialized in the slightest and yet is never strident in its truth telling. The Ypsilon did editorialize… but in such a graceful way that I didn’t miss the edges it was rounding off. With the Ypsilon I felt like I was getting all the information in the grooves and yet it was simultaneously pulling a magic trick of rendering that information in the most euphonious and intoxicating way imaginable (it really is something that piece of gear… I still use the Ypsilon integrated and quite possibly will until the end).
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But even with the unreliability of sonic memory (and I owned the Ypsilon phono stage not that long ago) I feel confident in saying that the Lupe is in a different category of information retrieval. I’m having that glorious audiophile experience with the Lupe of putting on cherished records and feeling like I’m hearing them fresh. Michael Trei alludes to this experience in his Stereophile review of the Lupe, and he also brings up the CH Precision as a comparison point. The Ypsilon and CH Precision have been the yin and yang of big dollar phonos for a while now - more forgiving tube unit versus more analytical solid state. I know how the Lupe compares to the Yip so I’d curious to hear how it compares to the CH P at less than a third of the price. I’ve never heard the CH P, and generally I have gravitated towards tubed phono stages, mostly because I felt like they were better at rendering deep holographic soundstages. The Lupe is no slouch in that department (especially when it comes to precise imaging in the soundstage) but the deep holographic thing… no doubt the Ypsilon had the edge there.
Another area where the Ypsilon had an edge is in the overall size of the presentation. The Yip really did “big.” Though I’m not
entirely sure about that comparison because for most of the time I had the Yip phono I was running stereo subs with TAD monitors and in my smallish room those subs really did “big” too. I now have Joseph Perspectives, no subs, and though I much prefer the bass of the Joes, they don’t artificially pump up the scale of things the way those subs did in here.
The Lupe yields nothing to the Ypsilon when it comes to tonal saturation which is really saying something. And it has hands down the best low end of any phono pre I’ve ever had. Maybe that is due to my lack of experience with top flight solid state units? (I had a Pass xp17 and an esoteric e-03, neither did much for me and I sold them quickly). The low end the Lupe digs out of my records wows me every day - taut, articulate, feel it in your chest slam, and LOW… all the good stuff. Just now I was listening to Nick Drake Five Leaves Left (from the Fruit Tree box) and noticing these Mingus like flourishes Danny Thompson was doing on the upright in Saturday Sun. Had me thinking of Money Jungle. I’ve listened to that Nick D record a bazillion times and never taken note of that. Rostropovich in the Beethoven sonatas with Richter, Starker in the famous Mercury Bach sonatas (both Speakers Corner sets)… these are records I’ve listened to over and over and with the Lupe I feel like I’m getting nuances of the performances and the sound of the respective cellos that are making them feel new to me. Earlier today I put on Chic’s first album and Bernie Edwards slappy bass had me on the edge of my seat. The pop, the resonant tone and sheer presence of the instrument in my room - it was jumping out of the speakers and whapping me around in my chair. That gets to the realm where the Lupe whips the Ypsilon in my memory (and every other phono pre I’ve had) - “dynamics.” Music just seems leap out and grab me by the tail feathers with this thing.
I haven’t even mentioned the convenience and the configurability which is the Lupe’s main sales pitch. I generally run three tonearms. Nothing I’ve owned has made that easier than the Lupe. With the one-input MM-only Ypsilon (and the Leben I was using just prior to the Lupe) it was a nightmare with the various SUT’s and cables. Four inputs on the Lupe (one balanced, each with ITS OWN GROUND LUG!!!!!) each input effortlessly configurable via the app for gain and impedance and capacitance and mono/stereo and yes EQ curves if that’s your thing. It’s not my thing but then with the way it works on the Lupe they are basically tone controls that you can customize if you want. I definitely have availed myself of that feature… rolled off some piercing records… added a little low end to thin ones. And it saves those settings such that all you have to do is select the given input and voila, all the various parameters stay in place. Amazing.
I have only one beef so far - the lowest resistance for an MC cart is 60ohm. Baffling why 30 isn’t an option.
That’s it for my gripes other than that I bought it second hand and the seller listed it as 10 out of 10 mint and when I got it I found a few obvious marks on the top and side panel near the front. The guy was a real dick about it when I pointed that out. But hey… that is hardly the Lupe’s fault.
It runs warm to the touch, nowhere near hot. Half box unit which I like. I’m not in love with the aesthetics but I’m fine with it. Comes in its own pelican case, nice touch.
All in all I’m surprised by its performance. Based on the reviews I expected it to be good, but not this good. I could see sticking with it for a while (with the caveat that I am generally not one to stick with gear for very long). I was hesitant to buy it because there aren’t a lot of user testimonials out there but I decided to go for it because of the multi-input convenience and ability to so easily dial in such a wide range of carts. Which is indeed great…and yet what has me hooked is the sound. Not since the ypsilon have I had a phono pre that makes me want to sit and spin records all day long, with each successive disc seeming like a revelation. I’m not a reviewer and I haven’t heard everything but I’ve heard enough to know the Lupe is special. Even in this rarified realm of audiophilia it’s crazy to call a phono preamp that retails for $10k a “bargain” so I’ll just say that sonically I think it hunts with the big dogs with the much bigger price tags.
(Rest of my system is the aforementioned Ypsilon Phaethon and Joseph Perspective 2 speakers… so far I’ve run a Benz Ebony L, a Miyajima Premium Be mono, and a Shure V15 ii into the Lupe - I’m on a real vintage kick lately with the old Shure MM’s tracking at less than a gram… ah the good old days)
