MUARAH MU-2 MM/MC TUBE PHONO PREAMPLIFIER

This Polish company has a name I find all but impossible to remember and, more importantly, spell correctly, but they have somehow stuck in my mind over the years as I have seen them exhibit and demonstrate their products for several editions of the Audio Video Show in Warsaw.

First of all their products look a little different from the norm with their distinctive illuminated green logo on the front of their kit. Secondly, they demonstrated to us a product that I thought was rather interesting in the form of their InteliClamp and Precision Speed Controller. These latter products aren’t what I’m going to be batting on about during this review, but I thought they were worth mentioning in passing as they form a product that is both innovative and interesting. Long story short is that the InteliClamp fits on the spindle of your record player when a record is playing and feeds back information to the controller to ensure that your belt-drive turntable is spinning at a constant 33 or 45 RPM. Muarah, had my attention and I approached them to get one of their products for review, but given I’ve moved on from my Origin Live and SME belt drive turntables to the perfectly speed-constant Technics 1200G, the InteliClamp would have been a bit redundant and so I opted to take a look at their MU2 phonostage. I should also add at this point that the brand also make a series of splendid-looking turntables, arms, and electronics…which makes sense.

Packaging on the MU02 is good and you get a power cable rather than the bog-standard cable that comes with pretty much every other bit of kit we get sent. This cable has a little locking device at the IEC end and you do need to ensure that it is properly engaged! The cable looks like something like Lapp Olflex or similar. I like this touch.

Instructions are accessed via a QR Code and I get that this is easier for the company and potentially better for the environment, but I’d prefer to have a basic printed sheet or booklet.

Build And Features

This 4Kg box is a narrow shoebox kind of design that measures (WHD) 210 x 350 x 110 mm and looks to be well put together and has the company’s thick polished glass faceplate with the green illuminated logo placed in the central position. I actually quite like it and it’s a nice change from the blue or red LEDs that seem to be ubiquitous on kit these days, though this box of tricks also does have the red LED to indicate it’s on and when it’s warming up (not that you could miss that it’s switched on if you have the green logo activated). More visual loveliness is on show with the two 6922EH (you can use 6DJ8, ECC88, or E88CC if you prefer) emitting their soft tubey glow through cut-outs on either side of the logo. The glow is enhanced by dimmable underlighting of the tubes. You can also turn the logo and valve illumination completely off. From the front, the unit looks cool, compact, and a little more exciting than the usual black or silver boxes that are used to house most phono-preamplifiers.

The MU-2 uses 6922 input stage valve in parallel with J-FETs and a with a 6922 second tube and MOSFET follower to give 56dB amplification. The company says that this will suffice for all MC cartridges with an output above 0.2mV.

Th MU-2 sits on four vibration-absorbing (and pleasingly squishy) footers.

My only comment that could be even slightly negative about the whole fit and finish of the MU-2 is that the bottom of the bent steel casework is slightly sharp, though it’s not going to cut you or anything.

Around the back of the rather nice and shiny steel casework (it’s polished acid-resistant stainless steel) things look a little more interesting than the standard RCA ins, outs, and ground, though these are obviously present and correct, as is the power inlet via IEC and a fuse holder. I’d have preferred the power switch to have been on the back panel as this is where I’d expect to find it, but having it underneath does actually make a lot more sense when you think about it. The obvious change from the norm here is a large red knob with a pointer that is used to set the correct loading for whatever cartridge you are using. In the red position the knob points towards MM for when you are using a Moving Magnet cartridge and this sets the load at the standard 47 kOhms. The remaining five positions are for when you are using a Moving Coil cartridge and have values of 1K, 500, 200, 100, and 50 Ohms. The knob has a rather satisfying click to it when it locks into place. The Muarah doesn’t allow for the different EQ curves that our LAB 12 melto 2 does but the five MC loads and the MM loading should be adequate for most people most of the time. As already touched upon, the supplied specifications for the MU-2 tell me that gain is set at 56dB for MC and 43 dB for MM which should work out fine for any of the cartridges that I have to hand.

Sound Quality

For the duration of this review, I used the MU-2 into the our Music First Baby Reference MK2 TVC preamplifier, which itself feeds into our TotalDAC AMP1 and then our Audiovector R6 Arreté loudspeakers. The turntable used was the Technics 1200G (watch my video review here) with our HANA Umami cartridge for MC duties and Vertere Sabre for MM. Both cartridges were housed in the excellent NasoTec Swingheadshells which I use for all my cartridges.

Set up of the MU-2 is pretty obvious and simple to anyone that’s previously installed a phonosatage.

With The Hana Umami

Jon Hopkins’ Music For Psychedelic Therapy album is a beautifully organic and nuanced piece of electronic music that benefits greatly in its effectiveness if played through a quality system and the Muahah and Umami combination worked very well indeed in digging down and pulling the small details of the recording through to the amp and speakers. I’d say that the overall effect is slightly softer than our exceptionally incisive Music First phonostage and SUT, but it’s also rather pleasing to listen to with the detail, rather than buried, being just slightly gentler on the ear. This latter point may well be to the liking of some and I certainly found myself falling into this record’s detail and enjoying the performance that was laid out before me and I actually think the UMAMI and MU-2 to be a really nice-sounding pairing. On quieter passages on this double album there is still a detail that you can fall into with the MU-2 in place. Surface noise was pretty much non-existent on this record, but then I do try to keep my records clean and overall I’d say this area of the MU-2’s performance is pretty much the same as the Music First pairing. The MU-2 is very quiet to silent in operation.