Atma-Sphere MP-1

In 1989, the first MP-1 introduced balanced line operation to the world of high end audio. It was the first balanced, fully-differential preamp ever made, with innovations that were breakthroughs at the time and remain so today, now with decades of refinement, patents and awards. 

The Mk. 3.3 update has affected the MP-1 more than than the rest of our lineup. More about that later... if the MP-1 is something you've not encountered before, it is unique in the world of preamplifiers. It easily outperforms conventional line stages and any passive or transformer volume control on account of its patented direct-coupled output which allows for greater transparency while also preventing coloration from interconnect cables. With only three stages of gain in the entire preamp (including the phono section), our Balanced Differential Design® is an elegant signal path that assures low distortion, wide bandwidth and dynamic range. No matter what you thought was the best, the MP-1 is an audible improvement. 

Our patents solve a major preamp problem: the output coupling capacitor of the preamp. This capacitor has to be large to play bass (especially driving solid state amps), but large capacitors can't play the mids and highs properly no matter how good the capacitor is. Getting rid of it is a transparency and bandwidth breakthrough. Until we created our patents, there really was no way to do this reliably with vacuum tubes. Transistor preamps often use direct-coupling, but sound like transistors! Some audiophiles have gone to using passive devices, thinking they have found the answer. This is only because they have not heard technology that works.  

The MP-1 is fully differential and balanced because the Balanced Line system (AES48) eliminates interconnect cable coloration, which is why the recording and broadcast industry has used it for the last 70 years. This is why high fidelity recordings existed before 'exotic high end' cables did! The balanced line system is better as it resists interference and noise, as well as cable artifacts (sound changes with different cables) and cable length. This eliminates the need for an exotic cable (and its cost) to achieve state of the art performance. 

The MP-1 nicely complements our balanced amplifiers, and works well with any amplifier. Phono cartridges are naturally balanced sources; since audio is recorded in the balanced domain, now you can play it back that way, too; this elimintates the artifact of the tone arm interconnect cable. The MP-1 works well with very low output moving coil cartridges (less than 0.2mV) and is a state of the art headphone power amplifier. 

Now for the Mk3.3 improvements! The phono section of the new preamp has more gain and is significantly lower noise than any prior version. In fact it's so quiet that the only way we could achieve the same numbers before was with a Low Output Moving Coil step-up transformer. There is so much more output that the phono is usually at about the same level as many digital sources. The line section is now lower distortion and also has a shunt-style Gain Trim system that allows for greater control of the gain of the line stage, so high output sources are not an issue.