Timestep T-01 MC Phonostage
Excellent.
Timestep is a British brand best known for its aftermarket power supplies for direct drive Technics turntables, and has engendered something of a cult following among the online SL-1200 fan club as a result. This is Timestep’s first phonostage – although Dave Cawley has been building phono stages for friends for decades, apparently. The T-01MC is an all-discrete, FET-only, no-overall-feedback, dual-mono in a single box moving coil phono stage.
Timestep has a love of fine components, on the inside at least. The input matching resistors are high-grade Dale models, the caps in the RIAA equalisation stage are from WIMA and the FETs themselves are hand selected before being placed in one of two blocks of eight. Inside the case, there’s a shielded custom toroidal transformer at one side of the full-sized case while the main (only) PCB takes up the back third of the box. Those who get all huffy about such things will undoubtedly get all huffy about this being a box of mostly air, conveniently forgetting that this is a perfect layout to help keep any vibration and/or hum fields from the transformer away from those sensitive traces on the PCB. Shared Power aside, this is a true dual mono layout – you could almost break apart the PCB into its three separate stages (well, you could… but you’d void the warranty fairly comprehensively). It takes a while to come on song, and it’s best to give it a 20 minute wake-up call before a serious listening session.
By the infinitely adjustable standards found on many phono stages, this is almost pathologically minimalist. It’s possible to have the T-01MC set for something other than the 0.35mV sensitivity, 100ohm impedance standard ‘MC’ specification, but as a factory fit. In fairness, most modern carts perform well to this broad spec. Granted, my again Ortofon MC7500 might require more flexibility than the T-01MC has on offer, but with less brutal loads (like the Benz-Micro Gullwing SLR, mounted in an SME 10) the Timestep performed perfectly. Otherwise, there’s a button on the front. A little LED glows when it’s powered up. There’s a ground-lift switch on the rear if you have a problem with hum and might benefit from a floating earth (while the case remains fully earthed for safety purposes). There’s two good phono sockets for left input and output, and another pair for right input and output with an earth tag in the middle.
That’s it.
