Though the Ephono already featured a balanced output, it didn’t prove to be any superior to the unbalanced one. In "Waterwheel" from Oregon's Out Of The Woods, reissued within the Discovery Series, I believe to have heard marginal benefits through the balanced connection – a touch more pressure in the lows and a little more airiness – but the differences are so minimal that I don’t want to be tied down to one song only. In the Classic Records reissue of Shostakovich's The Age Of Gold, the track "Polka" also doesn’t reveal any clear difference: With the Sphono, you needn’t ogling with the purchase of other types of line cables at all. In this case the RCA cables are as good as the balanced XLR ones.

After having run through all important comparison tests in the listening room, the Sphono now sets out to make his move into the living room and show how well he gets along with the Lyra Titan i. According to what I have experienced with the Ephono, I choose 220 ohms as load right from the start. Since the Titan i hasn’t been used for quite a time, I get going with a "good mood" record: The Trumpet Kings Meet Joe Turner. Way back in the 70's, Pablo Records released some records with Dizzy Gilllespie, Roy Eldrige, Harry "Sweets" Edison and Clark Terry: solid, gripping blues with lots of trumpet solos, peppered with some nice Hammond sounds. Timbres, dynamics, groove and resolution leave nothing to be desired. However, the studio recording contains virtually no spatial information, though the conventional, but quite catchy, slightly fat bass lines compensate for that. So I indulge both myself and the Lyra with the other side of the record as well.