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Classe NIL Pre-Preamplifier - $650 (Mesa)
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I purchased this NIL from a local gentleman who had bought it from a local estate sale bot knowing that it was supposed to have a power supply with it. He had been using it without one, which it will do, albiet sounding muddy and with about half the desired gain. I had a power supply made that produces the dual 12v necessary for the unit to work correctly. The NIL is dead silent at idle and absolutely brilliant went fed with a high quality cart. The power cables are made from a high quality shielded Belden cable. The input and output RCAs have been replaced with new rhodium coated ones.
The black anodized case has seen its fair share of dings and scratches, but looks pretty good overall.
I have used it will both Miyabi 47 as well as Koetsu Rosewood Signature carts into phono stages from Pass Labs, Kitsune, Simaudio, as well as my current Sonus Veritas. I don't notice a decernable difference between the step-up transformers built into my Sonus Veritas, so the NIL has spent much of its time sidelined. Its time to pass it on to someone who needs something to step up a new MC cart to work with their favorite phono stage.
Since information about the NIL is scarce online, here is some that I borrowed from another listing I came across...
The Classe Nil is probably the finest solid-state "head amplifier" ever made. Arthur Salvatore wrote "It is beautifully built, it weighed 35 lbs., and it even had a separate, heavy-duty power supply. The majority of phono-stages and step-ups of today are literally like toys compared to it. 'Naturale Impendance Loading' circuit with floating input impendance automaticly optimize every mc cartrige loading conditions. This results in flattest frequency response and maximum signal to noise ratio.