Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click here.
My background, before taking charge of SoundStage! Ultra, is in IT. I’ve been a COBOL programmer, systems analyst, team leader, QA tester, and technical writer, all at varying times, sometimes running each task in series on the same project. I’ve gathered business requirements, coded up processes, and then tested my own code. I wrote it, so I know what to test, right?
Not so much. I was always aware of proud papa syndrome, and always exceptionally nervous that I’d let one of my own bugs slip through into production. Every once in a while it would happen, but generally that wasn’t a problem. I was also the maintenance programmer, so I’d fix it post-implementation.
I tell you this not to brag about my own skills, nor to slam the car company that tolerated these sloppy processes. That said, I currently drive one of my former employer’s products. Every time I push the start button and hear it fire up, I am completely amazed.
No, I’m telling you this because I’m acutely aware of how difficult it is to develop a product that serves multiple functions and have it work flawlessly from start to finish. Many of the products I receive for review at SoundStage! Ultra have small issues—bugs, really—that my old IT self wouldn’t let slip through the cracks. Weird menu functionalities, manufacturing idiosyncrasies, little things here and there. Often, I don’t even mention them, as I realize that these could easily be viewed as cute little personality details that are totally acceptable. And I’d be a dick for calling out such microscopic foibles. I’m trying to impart the big picture here.
But when a multifunction product enters my system and is essentially perfect, with no flaws, no issues, and no problems that require me to institute workarounds, the systems developer in me sits bolt upright and takes notice.
I present to you the first such component, with incredible functionality, for which I have found absolutely no defects: the Mola Mola Lupe phono preamplifier (US$11,140, £7299, €7990).
PERFORM VARYING
Mola Mola, which is based in Groningen, Netherlands, has mostly flown under my radar. I’ve known about the company and seen its products in passing. My first real listen to its products came at High End 2024, when we visited a room hosted by Vivid Audio that featured a full Mola Mola amplification chain. That was a genuine wow moment, listening to the Vivid Moya M1 statement speakers—the largest high-end speakers in the world, I’d wager—being spanked by the small, buttoned-down Mola Mola Ossetra amplifiers (four of them, though). The premiere of the Moya M1 was the main event there, but I couldn’t help casting side-eye at the Mola Mola electronics.
I met Ewald Verkerk—the international sales director for Mola Mola and Vivid Audio—that same year, when his honest, straightforward Dutch evaluation of my level of intoxication persuaded me that I’d had enough to drink for one evening and likely saved me from a miserable morning after. Having become more acquainted, I jumped at the chance to review Mola Mola’s phono preamplifier.
The Lupe was full of surprises. First off, I was slightly unsettled by the state of the tatty, lumpy cardboard box that arrived at my door. I signed for the battered package and carried it down into my listening room. After I’d sliced open the top, I gave a wry smile. Underneath a thin layer of bubble wrap was a high-tech, Mission: Impossible–style flight case. Black, rugged, and precision-made, all it was missing was a couple of blinking LEDs and a countdown timer. Flipping open the solidly made latches, I lifted the top, which gave way with a soft, vacuum-release sigh. Neatly packed inside was the owner’s manual, a nifty little stick-like remote, and the Lupe itself, protected by a cloth sack. The Lupe is a premium product, and it’s packed and presented in like manner.
Mola mola is the Latin name for the ocean sunfish, and the company’s products are all named after various species of fish. And if you look at the Lupe from the side, and squint a bit, you can see that the top swish resembles the fins of a fish.
At this point, I must heap praise upon Mola Mola for its comprehensive, well-written manual. Clocking in at a generous 32 pages, this document is concisely written, providing not only instructions for use, but also the reasoning behind the design choices. I’ve written user documentation, and I know how hard it can be. The Lupe’s manual is a master class in documentation.
Mentioning that manual slides into the topic of functionality, and the Lupe is loaded down with features. There are three pairs of RCA inputs and one pair of XLR inputs, and one set each of XLR and RCA outputs. It follows that the Lupe can be connected up to more than one turntable at a time, and I took advantage of this on several occasions. Over the past few months, I’ve reviewed two moving-coil cartridges: the Goldring Ethos SE and the Ortofon MC X40. Both of these cartridges spent their time on my VPI Prime Signature turntable, replacing my DS Audio DS 003 optical cartridge. I ran the VPI’s signal into the balanced input of the Lupe, using my Nordost Tyr 2 RCA-to-balanced cable. Also in residence was the European Audio Team Fortissimo S, fitted with EAT’s Jo N°8 cartridge, and just in, the Ortofon Cadenza Black, which I’m writing about as a follow-up to the MC X40.
This was a novelty. I could—and did—play the same record on the VPI, flip it over to the EAT, and play it again. And why not? All it took was a button-press on the front of the Lupe, or a swipe on the well-provisioned app on my Samsung phone.
Now, about that app. Here’s another example of excellent engineering and user-experience design. The app communicates with the Lupe via the Bluetooth protocol, which seems to be catching on, as the remote for the VinnieRossi Brama integrated amplifier (review pending) also employs Bluetooth. Connection is fast. Fire up the app, and the Lupe responds within five seconds. Initial communication presents a list of four presets, each individually configurable for just about every parameter you can imagine. Now, you might think that the four presets correspond to the four inputs, but it’s cooler than that. Each preset can be configured to any of the four inputs. So you can have two or more presets pointing to the same input. I hear you—why would you want to do that? There’s a really good reason, and I’m getting to it.
Within each input there are toggles and drop-downs for all of the obvious parameters. Gain, cartridge type, impedance, capacitance, subsonic filter—they’re all available, with acceptable levels of granularity. Also present are mono and phase toggles, with phase adjustable for each channel. Gain is adjustable from 52dB to an admirable 87dB, in 5dB steps. Moving-coil impedance goes from 60 ohms up to 1k ohms, with the most useful steps at 100 ohms, 150 ohms, and 250 ohms. Other than the assignment across inputs, there’s nothing too unique here, just a well-provisioned, versatile phono stage.
It gets interesting further down the main page, in the Equalization section. Here you’ll find a drop-down list for equalization curves, and it’s packed with choices. According to Mola Mola, this functionality is made possible by juggling various resistors and capacitors via relays, in much the same way as a stepped volume control uses discrete resistors managed by stepped relays.
Okay, then—let’s say you have a whole bunch of old RCA records, another cube filled with pre-1954 Angels, and ancient six-eye Columbias that you just love. You can program four presets for the same input: one each for RIAA, Columbia, Angel, and RCA curves. The RIAA preset you can leave as stereo, but the other three can be set to mono. If you want to get crazy, the Mola Mola allows you to create a custom curve, independently manipulating bass turnover, rolloff, and low shelf, for that one pre-war Bulgarian duduk record in your collection. In fact, Mola Mola mentions that the Lupe is designed as an archival phono stage, and I can see how it would be useful for transcribing and digitizing a large, diverse collection.
An important note—even though the Mola Mola is controlled via a Bluetooth app, all signal processing is performed in the analog domain.
Getting back to the guts of the Lupe, it’s built around two discrete phono stages—one for moving coil and another for moving magnet. This is important. Most phono stages use a base gain stage for moving magnet, and combine that with RIAA inversion. To accommodate moving-coil cartridges, there would generally be a preceding gain stage or transformer to crank up the signal. The Lupe employs a discrete class-A JFET gain stage for moving magnet that is voltage-optimized, while the moving-coil stage is current-optimized. Discrete stages allow for shorter signal paths, optimized for the specific needs of each cartridge type. An active phono-equalization circuit follows the gain stages.
The Lupe is fully balanced, from input to output, including treating a moving-coil cartridge’s output as balanced, which it most assuredly is. Juice comes by way of a switch-mode power supply.
Like the other Mola Mola gear I saw at High End 2024, the Lupe is housed in a swoopy, machined-aluminum case. It’s a half-width component, which is refreshing in this age of bigger and heavier. The front panel features a small but informative circular window that displays the settings of the currently selected preset. Two small buttons on each side of the display are used to select one of the four presets. The display was a touch too small for me to read from across the room, but that really wasn’t a problem, as all of the parameters were instantly available to me within the app.
A simple press on any one of the input buttons powers up the Lupe, while a long press on any button powers it down. Or, once again, you can use the app.
There were zero oddities in the preamp’s setup, performance, or overall manners. The Lupe was extremely well behaved and utterly noiseless. I mean, totally silent; as unaffected by different cables and cartridges as any phono stage I’ve experienced. It did run quite warm, however. Not hot, mind you—more like reassuringly warm. Input selection and gain adjustments were accompanied by a click from a sexy little relay. Changes to parameters via the app were instantaneous and free of drama.
ACCEPT CURRENT-DATE
So the Lupe was completely silent and extremely neutral at the same time. There was no single frequency that was highlighted or recessed. That said, the bass was very tight and well defined. The Lupe’s bottom end was not elevated, but its quickness and definition endowed the low end with what might be considered a boost. But it wasn’t.
It seems nobody but me likes R.E.M.’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi (Warner Bros. Records 9 46320-1), but I’m okay with that. I was never a fan of the group’s earlier stuff—too raw for me. New Adventures is smooth, dark, and sophisticated, and the LP sounds fantastic. And it’s an all-you-can-eat low-frequency buffet. “E-Bow the Letter” has a deep bottom end that can sound constipated and boomy, but with the Lupe leading the charge, I could clearly make out Mike Mills’s tasteful, loping bass line without it being gummed up by Bill Berry’s kick drum.
Same goes for busier music—crisp and clear, open and unhurried. The Lupe untangled complicated music most endearingly. The best performance I’ve yet experienced in my analog system came by way of the Cadenza Black fitted to the big EAT and running through the Lupe. Mock me all you wish, but when I want to relax into a comfortable wool-sweater of a record, I often return to my favorite Rush album, Hemispheres (Mercury / Virgin EMI 4711806). Listening to this firecracker, to “Circumstances,” I was transfixed by the Lupe’s presentation, by how well it spread out the band. Geddy Lee’s meaty bass grabbed me by the short hairs—its jam-filled growl felt so real I could just reach out and touch it. The Lupe’s bass prowess gave Lee’s Rickenbacker a full-throated growl without bloating it. Same goes for the Taurus pedals in the soft bit of “La Villa Strangiato”—rich, powerful, and tight.
Images through the Lupe were rounded and full, encapsulated but still large and corporeal. Perfectly fleshed out, big, juicy, with three-dimensional presence. Robert Fripp’s Exposure (Panegyric DGMLPX101) is an abrasive listen, and it’s extremely odd. Daryl Hall, of Hall & Oates, and Peter Gabriel appear on this album, and it’s full of both weird jangly proto-punk and quiet introspection. Gabriel singing “Here Comes the Flood” (there’s another, slightly different version on his second solo album) was spookily real, especially on the low, quiet sections. This song is perhaps his perfect performance—one that transcends his career, standing alone as a masterful work of art. The Mola Mola seemed to dig out the rich shortbread that encircles Gabriel’s voice like a halo of warmth. Larger than life, but deeply personal, this song seems to invite me to examine the trajectory of my life every time I listen to it.
Listening to this system—the Cadenza Black via the Fortissimo S to the Lupe—resulted in the most look-up moments in my experience. I’d be sitting there, typing away, or maybe reading, and my attention would be repeatedly dragged up to take in an expanse of music that transcended the concept of a stereo system. This process of listening was so far beyond the day-to-day activity of simply playing back and consuming music.
But why? What made the Lupe so special? Again, it was no one specific frequency band, although everything was where it needed to be. Bass? Tighter than a fish’s ass. A clear, uncolored, beautifully fleshed-out midrange. Highs that had just the right amount of sparkle.
Perhaps another example would provide some useful information. How about we return to Astor Piazzolla’s Tango: Zero Hour (Pangaea PAN‑42138), which I’ve blathered about repeatedly over the years. I think I’ve played this record so many times that I’m wearing out side 1, so I’ve been spinning up side 2 more often. I guess I need to buy another copy on Discogs—if ever there’s been a record that needs a reissue, this is it. At any rate, the flip side starts off somewhat busily with “Michelangelo ’70,” but it calms right down. In the frantic parts, the Lupe retained a full sense of scale, refusing to mush everything together. Oftentimes I just push forward, waiting for the sparser parts of this record, but the Lupe’s sense of control and separation decoded what could easily degenerate into a mess.
So I enjoyed—loved—“Michelangelo ’70,” laughing to myself as the violin battled against the bandoneon, with the bass egging them on. The Lupe transformed a conglomerated riot into a carefully orchestrated dance. Each instrument stood perfectly placed in space, each with complete harmonic body, a sense of realism that transcended the simple concept of music playing from a record.
With music that’s simpler and more stark, the Lupe performed equally impressive tricks. John Zorn’s Alhambra Love Songs (Tzadik TZ 6010) is a favorite here in the Thorpe household. Marcia loves it as much as do I. It’s ostensibly an album by a jazz piano trio, but that’s selling it short. This is music that’s peaceful and powerful, an experience that feels like it expands horizontally to take up the entire room. The sense of scale presented here by the Lupe was extraordinary. Rob Burger’s piano was perfectly placed in the dead center, its full-size keyboard extending front to back, and the soundboard just to the right. Silky cymbals tinkled on the right.
The bass was huge and to the left. What I’m getting at here is that the Lupe recreated the musical performance in a way that suspended disbelief. “Half Moon Bay” is a delicious slice of calm, like floating on a raft on a still lake. The Lupe’s tight, authoritative bass, combined with its relaxed and extended highs, let the piano work take the lead. And yet, the Lupe was so balanced that the natural order of things just clicked into place.
Again, I’m back where I started. The Lupe is a wholly neutral phono stage. It’s so neutral that its main attribute is the ability to totally get out of the way and funnel the music through without editorializing. Yet that funnel becomes a fine mist at the delivery end, spraying the performance out and saturating the room.
GOTO EXIT
The Lupe elevated the impact of every piece of music that I played through it. I could spin it, reiterating my satisfaction at the imaging, at the Lupe’s handling of the low end, at its grain-free, extended, engrossing highs, but that would be beside the point. The upshot is that the Mola Mola Lupe is the most satisfying phono stage of my experience. It’s not cheap, but excellence never is.
There are stripped-down, no-nonsense phono stages available for much less cash that approach the sound quality of the Lupe—iFi Audio’s iPhono3 Black Label jumps to mind—but it’s that last chunk of quality, that ability to loft images, to thoroughly engross and draw you in, that’s the domain of a component like the Lupe. Over the last two years I’ve had a whole bunch of extremely good components cycle through my system. Of these, the Lupe easily stands out as one of the best.
The most telling endorsement of the Lupe I can give is that I couldn’t find a single thing wrong with it, and God knows I tried.
. . . Jason Thorpe
jasont@soundstagenetwork.com
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click here.
Associated Equipment
- Turntables: VPI Prime Signature, European Audio Team Fortissimo S
- Cartridges: European Audio Team Jo N°8, DS Audio DS 003, Goldring Ethos SE, Ortofon MC X40, Ortofon Cadenza Black
- Phono preamplifiers: Aqvox Phono 2 CI, Hegel Music Systems V10, EMM Labs DS‑EQ1, Meitner Audio DS‑EQ2
- Preamplifiers: Hegel Music Systems P30A, Meitner Audio Pre, Simaudio Moon Evolution 740P
- Power amplifier: Hegel Music Systems H30A
- Integrated amplifiers: Hegel Music Systems H120, Marantz Model 10, VinnieRossi Brama
- Digital sources: Logitech Squeezebox Touch, Meitner Audio MA3
- Speakers: Focus Audio FP60 BE, Aurelia XO Cerica XL, Totem Acoustic Sky Tower, Bowers & Wilkins 805 D4 Signature
- Subwoofer: Bowers & Wilkins DB2D
- Speaker cables: Siltech Royal Single Crown, Audience Au24 SX, Nordost Tyr 2, Crystal Cable Art Series Monet
- Interconnects: Siltech Royal Single Crown, Audience Au24 SX, Furutech Ag 16, Nordost Tyr 2, Crystal Cable Diamond Series 2
- Power cords: Siltech Royal Single Crown, Audience FrontRow, Nordost Vishnu
- Power conditioner: Quantum QBase QB8 Mk II
- Accessories: Little Fwend tonearm lift, VPI Cyclone record-cleaning machine
Mola Mola Lupe phono preamplifier
Price: US$11,140, £7299, €7990
Warranty: Two years, parts and labor; four years with registration
Mola Mola
Kattegat 8
9723JP Groningen
Netherlands
Phone: +31 505 26 49 93
Website: www.mola-mola.nl
