Dos Locos buenos

Ron Sutherland makes a strong case for being crowned the king of all phono preamps, though I expect he would blush at any such suggestion.

- MICHAEL TREI

In 1979, with degrees in physics and electronic engineering (where his final project involved designing and building a digital logic-controlled preamp), he teamed up with Gayle Sanders to found electrostatic speaker company MartinLogan. ("Martin" and "Logan" are Sanders' and Sutherland's middle names, respectively.) But after a few years, he found the increasingly corporate mindset at M-L a bit stifling, so he decided to go his own way. Ron wanted to build gear he thought was cool and fun while not being directed solely by its commercial potential. He joined up with his brother to start Sutherland Engineering, creating hi-fi equipment that piqued his own interest and hopefully that of a bunch of customers.

At first, Sutherland made a wide range of components, including preamps, power amps, and DACs, but gradually he focused more and more on phono preamps. Today that's the only thing he makes.

The $9800/pair Dos Locos is Sutherland's latest and most ambitious in a series of phono preamps that use transimpedance (current drive) to amplify the cartridge's electrical signal. The Dos Locos follows the Phono Loco ($8200; reviewed by Michael Fremer, see bit.ly/PhonoLoco), the Little Loco Mk2 ($3800; see bit.ly/LittleLoco), the Big Loco (not reviewed and apparently no longer available), and the SUTZ head amp ($3800; see bit.ly/Sutz). The Dos Locos is "dos" because it comes (for stereo systems) as a pair of independent monoblocks.