High End 2018 • Hot Product

Aesthetix introduced its new preamplifier, the Pallene, undoubtedly named after the small moon of Saturn, signaling up front that the Pallene was designed as a less expensive derivative of Aesthetix’s top-tier Saturn series of components. The Pallene features fully balanced tube circuitry and a discrete switched-resistor volume control like the Calypso preamplifier. It has five balanced and single-ended inputs and a basic headphone jack. It uses one 6DJ8/6922 tube per channel. The unit carries over the very attractive look of Aesthetix’s more expensive products.

The basic version is priced under $4000, but three add-on cards are offered as options, each of which will cost about $1000. The first is a phono section with front-panel- and remote-switchable gain settings for either moving-coil or moving-magnet cartridges, and loading choices that can be added. The second is a DAC card with two RCA, two TosLink and one USB inputs that handle up to 24-bit/352kHz PCM DSD64 and DSD128. The third is a fully discrete, fully differential headphone amplifier, offering 1 watt output into 32 ohms.