[beat]

Hello all,
Any body heard the relatively new grado ph-1 phono stage? I totally like the look of it..reminds me of a cigar box. But I can put a 100.00 NAD in a cigar  box and have cool looks..no offense NAD lovers.

[Tonto Yoder]

beat,
Did you follow the link in the audiogon ad??
http://www.gradolabs.com/reviews/phono_amp_1.htm
A very brief review but still better than nothing.  BTW, as to the cigar box idea, I believe Grado maintains that the wood chosen for all the Grado products is for resonance control--from the wood-bodied cartridges, to the headphone "ears" to the headphone/phono cases, I believe it's all the same mahogany (grown in Brooklyn surprisingly).  I think that Grado even made a wooden tonearm in the past.

Tonto
BTW, I was right about the tonearm--from Grado's website:"In the early years Grado also produced speakers, turntables and the highly acclaimed wooden tonearm, which came in several models. Even today, almost forty years after it was discontinued, people are still using this tonearm. In 1963 all of Grado’s resources were dedicated to creating the worldis finest phono cartridges."

[beat]

Interesting T,
I was considering making a tonearm from a piece of ebony or possibly pernambuco (which is used for making violin bows) I think I will still try it once I get my TT built and have time to mess around. Right now I'm kinda set on building a carbon fiber tonearm. I went ahead and picked up the grado ph-1, btw. I'm sure I'll be happy with it, but we'll see. Yes, I did see the link to that review. I couldn't find much else and I tried a few different search engines.
thanks for all the info, beat