Rolf Becker attaches great importance to the channel balance of the input impedances. It is, as he points out, irrelevant whether the absolute value is exactly 500 or 504 ohms. Instead, it’s more important for him that the values ​​of the two channels differ a maximum in the parts-per-thousand range. To achieve this, he selects even the highly praised Vishay resistors meticulously using a very high-quality Hewlett-Packard measuring bridge. This requires, according to the designer, a lot of time, good nerves and a few grading boxes with many compartments. But also in regards of the further processing of the selected components, a manually assembled Blue Amp clearly differs from a mass fabricated product. On the one hand, instead of SMD components wired ones are used, as these are exposed to a significantly less thermal stress during soldering. On the other hand, Rolf Becker bends the connecting wires of the components manually on a bending gauge. The thereof resulting larger radius reduces the mechanical load on the wires at the contact caps of the component body. This necessarily doesn’t lead to better sound, but significantly increases the life expectancy of the Blue Amp phono stages. Now one starts realizing where the price of a Model 42 comes from.

When I exchanged Einstein’s The Turntable’s Choice against the brand-new Blue Amp in my system, I was satisfied with the results, but by no means euphoric: it performed at least on the same level as the Einstein, which by the way is about to be replaced by a newer model later this year, but did not show any noticeable improvements. Of course, the 42 remained active to accumulate hours of operation, as it also did when I first approached the monumental Kronos Pro turntable with its two counter-rotating platters. And day-by-day it increasingly impressed me with its enormously open, extremely dynamic and generous spatial performance. But, unnoticeably, I had almost forgotten which part the Blue Amp had been playing within this ultimate sonic enjoyment. I only got aware of it when I switched back to LaGrange, Thales Simplicity II and Einstein's The Pickup, realizing that the gradually burning-in Model 42 had significantly been enriching my analogue pleasures of the past weeks.

Therefore, the 42 well asserted its place in my system by the time when Dietrich Brakemeier mounted the Acoustical Systems Aquilar on the more distant of the LaGrange’s two tonearm bases. Then, on two consecutive evenings, my wife and I listened to LaGrange, Aquilla and Lyra Etna while playing some familiar records such as Eddie Gomez and Jeremy Steig's Music For Flute & Double Bass or Egberto Gismonti's Sanfona. My wife particularly got impressed with the resolution skills of this combination: some of the musical details she never had heard in this clarity before. As far as I’m concerned, I was especially fascinated by the stirring dynamics of this trio, which, despite peak performing in the aforementioned disciplines, played immensely coherent and like a unified whole. A more detailed analysis of the 42’s tremendous abilities however, can only be conducted by a more systematic approach, enriched with one or the other comparison. Up to this point two or more unknown factors had been in the game, and I also had missed to optimize the playback quality by matching the impedances: The above mentioned set-ups allowed to discover so much new even with well-known records, that I – at least within the framework of a relaxed listening – lost the tought about further improvements.