"The Music Was Delicious"

You might know Jim Fosgate from his pioneering work in car audio. But there's another side to this world-renowned audio designer that isn't quite as well known.

"Jim Fosgate fits the category of Classic American Inventor to a T," notes Steve Guttenberg in Stereophile magazine. "This softspoken, quietly intense man has earned 18 patents and founded three successful electronics companies." He created the groundbreaking Dolby's Pro Logic II surround sound processor and won an Emmy for the Development of Surround Sound for Television in 2003.

Returning to his first love, high-end analog audio, Jim has developed a superb vacuum tube phono preamplifier, the Fosgate Signature.

"The music was delicious," says Jason Victor Serinus in his October 3, 2009 RMAF 2009 Show Report blog for Stereophile.

"If you've wondered, as I sometimes have, if it is really worth the effort and cost to step up from a phonostage in the $1000 range to one at this higher level, the Fosgate provides great sounding answers that add up to a resounding, Yes," notes Chris Martens in the October 2010 issue of The Absolute Sound magazine.

"It has loads of detail, a taut bass, a spacious soundstage, and a midrange that is steeped in liquidity and sweetness," reports Randy Wells in Issue 22 of ToneAudio magazine.

A Passion for Tubes and Vinyl

Jim listens to tubes and vinyl in his personal system. His passion for analog and tube sound has lead to the development of the Fosgate Signature phono preamp. But the Signature is no overnight development. Over the past 30 years, Jim Fosgate built and tested more than 100 different designs before settling on the one that became the Fosgate Signature.

This design features all tube amplification and rectification with no solid-state devices in the signal path, switchable moving magnet (42.5 dB) and moving coil (60.5 dB) gain settings, plus variable loading settings from 100 to 100K ohms. The industrial design of the Fosgate Signature is clean and modern, using blue LED illumination for the tubes, yet also retro, proudly displaying its seven tubes without a cage and with real wood end caps.

The Fosgate Signature is a warm, detailed, inviting phono preamp with great extension at both frequency extremes. It is an extraordinary imager, with depth and width comparable to units at much higher price points.

• All-tube amplification and rectification
• No solid-state devices in the signal path
• Switchable moving magnet (42.5 dB) and moving coil (60.5 dB) gain settings
• Loading: (100 ohms, 300 ohms, 500 ohms, 1k ohms, 47k ohms, 100kohms) (Selectable)
• Tube complement: two 6DJ8, two 12AX7, two 12AT7, one 12X4
• Blue LED illumination

• Dimensions: 13-3/16" wide, 5-5/8" high, 10-3/4" deep
• Weight: 11 lbs.

"The music was delicious," says Jason Victor Serinus in his October 3, 2009 RMAF 2009 Show Report blog for Stereophile.

"What came as a revelation was the Fosgate's remarkable ability to handle large-scale variations in dynamics and overall musical complexity, while maintaining consistently high levels of nuance and detail."

"Three other positive qualities worthy of mention are the Fosgate's purity of timbre, its effortless soundstaging, and its neutral (yet thoroughly musical) tonal balance."

"But is the Fosgate one of the strongest performers available at the $2500 price point? It's certainly the best one I've heard thus far, and by a not-subtle margin - meaning the Fosgate will offer all the performance some listeners will ever need or want. If you've wondered, as I sometimes have, if it is really worth the effort and cost to step up from a phonostage in the $1000 range to one at this higher level, the Fosgate provides great sounding answers that add up to a resounding, Yes."

- Chris Martens, The Absolute Sound magazine, October 2010.