Phono Preamplifiers

After 28 years of working as a manager for the Japanese subsidiary of Texas Instruments – as well as playing and teaching guitar – VIDA's president, Shinobu Karaki, took early retirement to make phono stages for a living. He launched Aurorasound in 2010 'to make my hobby my business', adding that 'this is what we call self-actualisation'. He says that DACs 'cannot make people happy or make money, because of the short life cycle'. Instead, he believes that, 'most people believe vinyl has the better sound'.

The philosophy of his company is to, 'combine good old technology with new technology to make unique products for reproducing music'. He says that the VIDA, or 'Vinyl Disk Amplifier', came out at the right time for the vinyl revival. 'The VIDA Prima is for newcomers to analogue, perhaps who have come from computer audio. They know serious sound, and want to get into vinyl as the next step up the hi-fi ladder.'