[1]I have been enjoying listening to a Relflex M phono stage courtesy of the GSP loan scheme and those lovely forum members who organise everything - thanks Jon!
I have had many wonderful pieces of Hi Fi gear over the last 45 years, but only in the last few, that I have been able to 'indulge' myself a little more freely (well as freely as you can when the rest of your family would be quite happy with a 100 quid Panasonic mini system).
Several years ago I had a Rega Brio amplifier and used its internal phono stage with a Rega planar 3 and Goldring cartridge. But it was only when I added a Gram amp 2 SE, that I really began to hear what makes vinyl sound so special. I posted a short description which you can read here:
http://audio-forum.gspaudio.co.uk/upgrading-from-ga2se-to-reflex-m_topic2686_page3.html
Having heard such a huge improvement moving from an inbuilt phono stage to the Gram amp , I expected that the 'law of diminishing returns' would kick in as I moved higher up the GSP ladder. I expected the Reflex to be better than the Era Gold I now have. I did not however, expect to hear the dramatic improvement I had first experienced with the GA 2. I thought I might appreciate a little more detail and perhaps a widening of the sound stage.
But when the needle hit the groove of ‘Chuck E.’s in Love’ by Rikki Lee Jones (always my first lp to try something new), I was completely gobsmacked as RLJ’s voice flowed out the speakers with a texture and feeling that I hadn’t noticed before.

Switching to some classical, Karajan’s last recordings of Beethoven’s symphonies have never sounded better – the strings actually sounded like air vibrating in the wooden bodies of violins, cellos and double basses. The brass section of the BPO had that lovely rasping sound which is so difficult to capture on a recording.

Smaller scale works such as Vivaldi’s flute concertos played on the recorder, sounded amazingly life -  like. For such a simple instrument, it seems very difficult to portray the high pitched notes of a recorder on a hifi system without it sounding like a penny whistle!  But again, with the Reflex in my system, you could hear the vibration of air inside a hollow wooden tube and know that this was a real human being playing!

The only way that I can summarise the improvements in sound quality is to use a visual analogy. Listening to music through the internal phono stage of the Rega was like looking at a very nice black and white landscape photograph. Adding the Gram Amp 2 brought colour and detail to the scene. The Era Gold made those colours much more vivid, allowing much smaller details to be seen. It also stretched the picture sideways to become a panorama. What the Reflex does is to add shading and highlights to the picture so that it is no longer appears flat and two – dimensional. It gives solidity and texture to all the objects in view. In other words, everything in our landscape seems three – dimensional and therefore ‘more real’.

So why am I annoyed? Well I thought it would be nice to listen to the Reflex simply to compare with the Era Gold, then send it back knowing that I could be perfectly happy with what I had already. But it has knocked that for six, because I now know how much more is ‘locked’ in the grooves of my records. What’s more, I could even get a discount for being a contributor to this forum.

So shame on you GSP – you have made it too easy to buy your products!

There is one great thing about GSP phono stages – they look kind of similar to each other. I wonder if my wife would even notice when I upgrade?

Gear used for listening: MIchell Gyro SE with HR power supply and Orbe clamp; SME M2-9 arm:Ortofon 2M Black; Creek Evolution amplifier; Spendor 3/5R2 speakers; Mark Grant interconnects and speaker cables.