Audiophilepure

Another often-overlooked type of distortion is phase modulation, which occurs when the circuit’s speed varies with the audio signal’s amplitude. Like crossover distortion, phase modulation produces a distortion profile that varies across the different frequency components of the music signal. For instance, the (usually large) low-frequency components of a bass instrument can cause time smearing in the higher-frequency components of instruments and voices. In the power stage and other signal stages of the PA1, dedicated design techniques, including feedforward corrections, keep this type of distortion extremely low.

With this highly optimized and fast amplifier circuitry, an appropriate amount of global feedback is applied. Grimm developed a second-order feedback loop for the PA1, which further reduces the last remnants of distortion. The very careful and unique design of this feedback circuitry – again preventing phase modulation and thermal errors in this part – further strengthens the fidelity of the amplifier.

https://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/1026/Tough_Nut_Audio_Footers_Review.htm

The footers reviewed here are a spin-off category from the footers developed for their racks. I’ve championed this category for years, going back more than two decades to the first reviews of Stillpoints, Boston Audio Design, and Soundeck (then known as Sound Damped Steel). And I have a shoebox full of others, comprising various elastic materials, wood, ceramic, and steel balls, and concave retaining fixtures.

https://pt.audio/2026/10/18/ch-precision-p10-reference

In other words, with my 1.52 ohm Atlas, an extra ohm or two of wiring is not a rounding error. It is a meaningful chunk of the total. Florian traced that parasitic resistance through the cartridge contacts, the tonearm wires, and the arm-to-P10 cable, and his advice was to keep the whole path “as low as possible when working in current mode, ideally under one Ohm.” To be clear, a continuous silver cable does not automatically guarantee a low resistance path. But fewer junctions means fewer places for resistance to hide. When I had my AXIOM built without the extra DIN and interconnect connections, I thought I was being a little obsessive. Nice to know there was an electrical reason for the obsession. If you are building a current mode front end, have the conversation with your tonearm maker before you order.

It is a distinct advantage in reviewing to have two configurable devices side by side. It only took a few minutes to unscrew the footers, lift the lid, swap the board, and close the unit. Kudos for Heaven 11 trusting in the basic competence of the audiophile community and not charging for return (or round trip) shipping and bench time for upgrades. A set of identical components, one with upgrades, offers close to real-time comparisons and chases away any uncertainty whether the upgrades are efficacious; operationally switching between the two units during playback took me about 15 seconds.

As the two Mk3 units were connected identically, the headphone comparison was the quickest I have done. Starting with the music playing through both units, I kept the volume down on them both to silence the mains and subwoofers, plugged the  headset into one of the units, and brought up the volume. To switch, I lowered the volume, plugged the headphones into the other unit with the upgrade Performance Headphone Module ($150 if purchased separately, $99 when ordered pre-configured with the  amp), and brought up its volume.