I found this article very interesting. This is a subject that had been on my mind lately. I’ve come to the same conclusion this article did. Adding a preamplifier can yield meaningful improvements but you need a very high quality one. The commitment necessary to make a meaningful improvement over using my DS MKII direct makes me wonder if the juice is worth the squeeze.
It really is.
No “you don’t need a preamp” gear I own sounds better without my preamp. It sounds damn good, probably good enough. But it sounds so much better theough my preamp.
Grimm MU2. Nope.
BACCH-SP adio. Nope.
Commodore 64? Unsure.
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I read most of the article. Yes, each link in the chain should work synergistically with it’s neighbors.
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I agree although, in fairness, it should be pointed out that Al’s preamp is a Gryphon Commander!
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Is that important?
And to be fair, it’s my second one.
The first one broke.
50% failure rate.
Oddly enough, same story with my PowerZone.
I am patient and trusting I guess.
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How did Gryphon and George respond?
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I was just trying to provide context to the earlier statement…
Notwithstanding the mentioned failure, I believe your $63K Commander qualifies.
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My Schiit Freya+ is definitely of the 1 step forward 3 steps back kind of experience.
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And with your neighbors…
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I used to use a preamp and preferred it to “straight into the amp.” Now my curent amp has a fantastic preamp stage installed and the sound is even better!
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Tip top care. The earliest Commanders had a problem component inside. Working with me they found and addressed the issue. The weak component was identified and replaced with sterner stuff.
At first I kept talking to engineers. I had a firm idea of what the problem was and kept repeating the same story. They thought about it. Then they said they would send me a brand new one with the new components so I would not have issues again. @paul172 picked the new Commander up from George and drove it to my house. As a bonus he brought our pal “Golden Ears” Doug with. We listened to the old Commander, then unboxed and installed the new Commander. Right out of the box Doug was impressed. But he recognized the first Commander, fully broken in, was 6.7% better sounding. (give or take .07%)
Then the three of us started working with the two Magic Black boxes. At the time I had in them in the front corners. Doug was in the BACCH sweet spot and when I lifted the right Black Box and carried it out of the room, his Golden Ears heard a continuous change as it moved through the room. That started the “Find the Black Box G-Spot” activity. It was a blast.
For the PowerZone mine is the top version with two 20 amp inputs.
I caged the bunny for obvious reasons.
I took the P20 out of the rack.
I reconfigured the Rack to place the PowerZone correctly, and I added a shelf in the place the P20 was. That took three hours and many dark moments.
Then it was time to connect 8 Stealth firehoses to the weirdly shaped PowerZone.
In zone 1 I had the two Power Cables for the Commander, plus the MU2, and the Bacch. Four of Four circuits used.
In zone 2 I put the two Power Cables for the Apex amp in, and the Ethos and the ALL IMPORTANT LHY SWITCH. All four circuits used.
When I started powering up the gear, the Commander lit up, The Apex lit up, the Ethos and the SWITCH lit up. But no MU2 or Bacch. WTF? Long story short we chalked it up to “AL KARMA”.
The Commander pair of outlets worked, the second pair did not. They sent a new one to George and @paul172 picked it up. He planned to drive it to my house in a month. So that is how he was able to experience a PowerZone in his house for free. I was kind of sad as I had a broken in PowerZone and it would have been fun to hear a fresh one again. The breaking process takes three weeks. In my experience it was good out of the box. The fact that it gets better, a lot better, and it take three weeks for it to be tip top. Shucks, I wanted to experience that again. But Paul got to. Go Paul!
I kept quiet about is as even with two non-functional outlets, it sounded amazing. I figured it would only happen to me and that turned out to be true. @paul172 met the US based Gryphon repair guy. The outlets use a connection that is supposed to be extraordinary. But this time… Turns out it was loose wires and he fixed it in ten minutes. Meanwhile I had my new one.
So anyway, how did Gryphon take care of me? By not having me send things somewhere to be tested by somebody. No sir. They sent me brand new gear with new and improved parts, in part due to my experience. I was of service. And Paul delivered free of charge, also taking the old gear with him and back to George. WoW!
George was really freaked out. He told me to open the PowerZone. We both believed had I opened it I would find and solve the problem easily. But I wanted explicit permission from Rune to open it. They declined. You can bet I would have taken 200 photos of the three-month-old Baby Unicorn horns inside. It is amusing that it took longer to remove the top cover than it took to fix the issue.
It reminded me of acquiring my P20 and PST. PS Audio was, if anything, too eager and way too fast dealing with my issues. Paul McGowan was all over it. I hadn’t read his book yet. I need to read that again. I love that guy!
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All’s well that ends well!!!
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When does it end?
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Soren (gryphon repair man) said that the issue was that Gryphon received some counterfeit parts that were in the commander causing issues. Soren is a great guy he also repairs many other brands. I asked him what brand he services the most and I was quite surprised when he told me. It wasn’t PS Audio but the letters PS are in the brands name. He said this particular brand has excellent sound quality but uses cheap parts on the inside that fail routinely. 
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I noticed not CJ or ML
When the fat lady sings!
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Please share Soren’s shop contact info. I have a couple friends who have gear they’d like to have serviced. Both guys live out in your direction.
Thanks Paul!
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I asked because ML was my first guess as there was an old Levinson No 27 in the repair area.
I will look it up and PM you with the info.
Isn’t that the sort of information we should share on forums? Why keep that secret? It could prevent folks from making expensive mistakes.
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