PassDIY Pearl

About the PassDIY Pearl

The Pass DIY Pearl Phono preamplifier is a DIY kit designed for audiophiles seeking a high-quality moving coil phono stage at a reasonable cost, approximately when built with some part substitutions. It features an input stage with four parallel low-noise JFETs (such as Toshiba 2SK209 or 2SK170) arranged in a cascode configuration to reduce noise, improve linearity, increase transconductance, and lower distortion. The input stage is followed by an opamp stage, with a cap multiplier circuit providing focused power supply filtering to minimize noise from the cartridge's very small signals. The design includes a DC servo to control offset and optional circuitry for balanced XLR outputs, which were not available in previous Pearl versions. Cartridge loading options are provided on the PCB, improving flexibility. The Pearl Phono is a descendant of the Pass Labs Aleph Ono front-end and shares design lineage with Pearl 2, XONO, and XP-15 models. It is optimized for MC cartridges down to about 0.4-0.5 mV output and can also work with MM cartridges, though gain is fixed. The kit is well documented with schematics and BOM available on PassDIY.com and has a strong DIY community support. The Pearl Phono is praised for its quiet operation, precise imaging, and good depth, though it may have slightly less gain and be noisier than the Pass Labs XONO reference. Overall, it is considered a competent and cost-effective MC phono preamp with features typically found in more expensive commercial units.