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Phono stages
Builds a cost-no-object Swiss phono preamplifier from solid aluminum with hand-selected, tight-tolerance parts.
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about masterline
Masterline is the phono-preamplifier line from HSE Swiss, founded in Switzerland in 1987 by Robert Huber, an engineer who came out of Studer. That professional-electronics background informs the company's focus on noise, precision, and longevity over feature breadth, and the Masterline name has become HSE's most recognized product. The defining product is the Masterline 7, a cost-no-object dual-mono phono stage introduced in 2019 after three years of development. It uses twelve discrete Class A gain stages and two low-noise Class A head amplifiers, built into a milled-from-solid aluminum block with 20mm-thick walls and a claimed multi-decade service life. Loading is exhaustive, with 37 gain settings plus extensive impedance and capacitance options selectable to match popular cartridges, and the device is assembled from hand-selected Swiss-made components held to tight tolerances. Masterline sits in the specialist cost-no-object phono-stage niche rather than carrying mass-market name recognition, competing with the top phono preamplifiers from Boulder, CH Precision, and similar reference-tier builders. It has earned major-press coverage in HiFi+, Stereophile, The Absolute Sound, and Tracking Angle. US availability runs through an established dealer network anchored by The Audio Salon in Los Angeles and Nirvana Sound. Design and production are based in Switzerland under HSE Swiss, where the units are machined and hand-built.