This new preamp is really something else. Everything that Art Dudley wrote in his review of it in Stereophile is true, just superb.
The first thing that struck me was the seeming lack of room boundaries, it was as if the walls had simply dissolved. The soundstage was just huge and expansive, stretching well beyond the physical dimensions of the room, with instruments and voices occupying real, distinct space rather than being smeared together. And the bass, the bass is amazing. It’s deep, controlled, and full of texture, with none of the bloat or overhang you sometimes get from lesser preamps. You can actually follow individual bass notes rather than just feeling a general low-end rumble.
On the setup side, I had mine built with a mono option for the phono stage, which is something I wanted for playing older mono pressings the way they were meant to be heard. It does mean sacrificing one input, since that circuitry has to come from somewhere, but that’s a trade I’m more than happy to make given how much I use it. In every other respect, this is really a first-class preamplifier, and it’s earned its place as the heart of my system, at least for now, though I say that fully expecting it to stay there for a long while.
Audio Satori 
You must be logged in to post a comment.