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Product of the Year Award 2025 – stereonet.com
Gruvy Award Winner 2024 – Analog Planet
Applause Award 2024 – stereonet.com
Vacuum Tubes and Balanced Outputs Guarantee Breathtaking Sound
The Tube Box phono preamps have been an integral part of Pro-Ject's product portfolio for many years. Practice makes even more perfection, and the new Tube Box DS3 B adds balanced inputs and outputs to Tube Box's beloved tube amplification.
This precision tube phono preamplifier benefits from outstanding circuit technology from Dr. Sykora and uses 'ultimate' premium components.
Award-Winning Performance
The Tube Box DS3 was honored with a Product of the Year Award 2025 from stereonet.com in the Phono Preamplifier category.
"This affordable but feature-packed phono stage offers the sweet sound of valves courtesy of two E88CC vacuum tubes, along with the option of balanced outputs via rear panel XLR sockets – something that was confined to high-end designs not so long ago. Factor in switches for gain adjustment, loading options, a subsonic high-pass filter and a continuously variable impedance control, and it's amazingly well specified by class standards. The Pro-Ject sounds great for the money, with a warm, detailed and musical character that makes you want to keep spinning vinyl."
"It Simply Knocked Me Over"
The Tube Box DS3 B won a Gruvy Award for 2024 from Analog Planet. According to the review, "The Tube Box DS3 B tube phono preamp is yet another high-value, smartly priced product from the brain of Pro-Ject founder Heinz Lichtenegger, and it is, of course, made in Europe."
"'Not to say it wasn’t refined, gentle, or atmospheric when called for — but the DS3 B’s overall footprint, while somewhat light compared to my reference phono preamps, simply knocked me over with its sense of exhilaration, layering, pristine but sun-flecked treble, transparent mids, and generally tight if not entirely weighty bass,'" observes reviewer Ken Micallef.
"Brings out the Best in Your Record Collection"
The Tube Box DS3 B also won an Applause Award 2024 from stereonet.com. "Pro-Ject's Tube Box DS3 B is a fabulous phono amplifier that delivers hear-through clarity, a defining characteristic of an accomplished tube design. Its inherently musical nature brings out the best in your record collection, smoothing out the spikiness from poor recordings without introducing intrusive colour to great ones," notes reviewer John Pickford.
"Well-built and competitively priced, it easily holds its own in a system built around far more expensive components. Sonically, it performs at a level that precious few of its competitors can rival. Partner it with a neutral and transparent amplifier for a wonderful analogue audio experience."
A Breathtaking Audio Experience
All components including tube output and polypropylene capacitors are audiophile grade and guarantee a breathtaking audio experience.
Connect your turntable either with the 5-pin mini XLR cable or standard XLR cables and profit from the balanced signal transmission. Symmetrical, also called balanced, transmissions, consist of a hot and a cold (also called + and -) signal. Both signal chains effectively carry the same musical information. The Tube Box DS3 B can extract the final musical information out of the +/- signals and remove all noise that was potentially added along the transmission.
"Infectiously Attractive"
"The Pro-Ject Tube Box DS3 B is not only a flexible and user-friendly phono stage. The amplifier opens up the sound of vinyl records in exemplary fashion, sounding resolved, detailed, silky smooth and ear-friendly," notes Lasse Svendsen, lbtechreiews.com, December 19, 2023.
"Tube Box is a great value for money, especially for those who can benefit from the balanced signal routing from input to output. Noise is minimised and the fine sound is infectiously attractive, no matter what kind of music is coming out of the grooves."
"Silky Smooth and Ear-Friendly"
"The Pro-Ject Tube Box DS3 B is not only a flexible and user-friendly phono stage. The amplifier opens up the sound of vinyl records in exemplary fashion, sounding resolved, detailed, silky smooth and ear-friendly," reports hifidaydreaming.com.
"The Pro-Ject Tube Box DS3 B is more than just a phono preamplifier; it's a gateway to rediscovering your vinyl collection. Its ability to extract the finest details from your records while imbuing the sound with the warmth and richness that only tubes can provide is truly remarkable," observes theaudiotailor.com.au.
Extreme Cartridge Loading Options
You can connect two turntables to the Tube Box DS3 B at the same time easily adjust all settings from the front panel. Each input settings are stored in the memory. Large adjustment ranges from 40dB up to 65dB are possible. This allows you to perfectly match the Tube Box with a wide variety of cartridges and integrate it into the rest of your hi-fi system, matching the volume levels accurately to other sources like CD players or streaming devices.
Load impedance can be set continuously via potentiometer, a system invented by Pro-Ject Audio Systems. It allows you to seamlessly adjust the impedance during playback and immediately assess the impact of different loading options. This is necessary to find just the right load impedance for your cartridge. No other manufacturers implement this feature in this extreme way!
External Power Supply
The Tube Box DS3 B is powered by an external adapter. It is important to keep all the parts which can radiate electromagnetic fields out of the amplifier range. This is the reason for the outboard power supply. Due to legal requirements, this power supply must be a switch mode type with guaranteed stand-by mode power consumption of 0.1W.
"You Can Use It with Two Turntables"
"Go with the DS3 B, the whole line is designed around being fully balanced from the bottom up. That's its strength," observes reviewer ChefBrunch at forums.stevehoffman.tv, March 2024. "What makes it also great is you can use it with two turntables. Just a push of the button and you're good to go… Also, the DS3B sends dual signals all the time, gives you a lot of flexibility. dual amps, one direct to a headphone setup. All kinds of possibilities."
