It was a true pleasure to have my friends Stephæn Harrell (left) and Pete Riggle (right) stop by for a little hi-fi tomfoolery on Saturday.

Stephæn brought by some tasty pizza from Greek Islands Cuisine, and we had a grand time sipping a little Pinot Noir from the Sonoma region of sunny California, along with  some Newcastle brown ale from not so sunny England.

Good friends, good food, good drink, fun music, and hi-fi games: A winning recipe for 'Life is good!'

If you look closely at the photo above you'll notice the Black Pearls Aquarius phono equalizer (the black box) that Stephæn is reviewing for 6Moons, and which Pido is optimizing for my classic broadcast-style EMT TSD 15 phono cartridge that I use most of the time in my system these days.

After we got everything all setup with the Aquarius I installed it into the big system for a little music listening.

My big system consists of the aforementioned EMT TSD 15 phono cartridge, VPI Classic turntable, Sablon Audio Panatela interconnects, vintage Macintosh MX110Z preamplifier/tuner, vintage Macintosh MC30 mono amplifiers, Sablon Audio Panatela component speaker cables, Duelund CAST external crossovers (Part 1 and Part 2), and Tannoy Westminster Royal Special Edition loudspeakers (completely rewired internally with Panatela component speaker cables per Part 1 of the Duelund-WRSE Project).

I absolutely love the way this system sounds and plays music, it really pushes all my happy buttons!

The $1900 USD Aquarius phono stage is made by Konstantinos Papachristou in Athens, Greece, and it sounds like a million bucks ... oops ... I'm getting ahead of myself!

Let me back up for a little context: Besides getting together for a fun time of food, drink, and music listening, we actually had a purpose ... to get Stephæn another hi-fi system data point for his review of the Black Pearls Aquarius phono stage.

Stephæn has evaluated the Aquarius in his system, Pete's system, and now it was time to give it a spin in my system, and then draw all the data points together for his 6Moons review (which you can read at 6Moons in the near future).

It's always nice to listen to hi-fi gear in a variety of contexts to help better understand what it is all about, and of course, it's fun!

Stephæn brought over his Allnic Audio Labs H-1200 vacuum tube phono stage (now discontinued, priced at $1600 USD when in production) to use as a familiar comparator.

We listened to the delightful Egberto Gismonti Sol Do Meio Dia album ...

... the Classic Records 45RPM version of Aaron Neville's Warm Your Heart ...

... and the Classic Records 45RPM version of Bill Henderson's Live at the Times.

These are all terrific albums from both a sonic and musical perspective and made for an enjoyable afternoon of comparative listening to the Allnic and Black Pearls phono stages.

One thing that we did learn about both these phono stages is that their ultimate level of performance could be made or broken by the choice of a power cord. You'll definitely want to use a high quality power cord with either of them, and you'll want it to be the right high quality power cord to get the best out of them.

For example, the Black Pearls Aquarius absolutely came alive and sounded majestic with the Sablon Audio Gran Corona power cord, but did a face plant with the Sablon Audio Quantum Gran Corona power cord.

The Allnic sounded just ok with the same Gran Corona that made the Aquarius sound so good, but was transformed magnificently with the addition of a Sablon Audio The Robusto power cord.

The difference definitely was not subtle, and getting the right power cord in place matters with both of these phono stages.

I'll leave all the details about the Black Pearls Aquarius phono stage to Stephæn in his upcoming 6Moons review, but I will say that the Aquarius plus the Gran Corona power cord was magnificent. The Aquarius had excellent sonics, did superbly well on musicality, and had gobs of emotional impact to light my emotional fires.

The Aquarius' chassis will not excite anyone, being a nondescript black box, and even a glimpse inside of its minimalist internals does nothing to prepare one for the musical magic it works on phono signals passing through it.

Overall the Aquarius was dark, rich, colorful, and exciting to listen to. I think those of you who like Shindo components, for example, will love this solid-state (!) phono stage, which makes albums sound like music. If you consider the Aquarius to be analogous to a solid-state Shindo you wouldn't be far from the mark, and you'll have the general idea what it is like to listen to music with.

The Aquarius is the most enjoyable solid-state phono stage I've heard, and in many ways the Aquarius reminds me a lot of the superb vacuum-tube New Valve Order SPA one phono equalizer ($4250 USD). I would be very happy with either one of them in my big system as a primary reference.

Keep an eye on 6Moons for Stephæn's review of the Black Pearls Aquarius phono stage, and I might suggest that if you are looking for a very musical phono stage in the $2000 USD or higher price range, you should pay very close attention to the Aquarius in your auditions.

Black Pearls website.

Thanks for stopping by!