Happy Day!
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That’s so back to the future. It must have tubes in it somewhere? I’ve never heard of VTL, and what’s a tuner?
Reviewed over here: Roy Gregory liked it.
Your preamp looks a lot more retro and sophisticated than my Esoteric, but I do have two balanced plus two RCA outputs though and no tubes. And the darn thing weights 70lbs.
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I love great preamps…heart of any system.
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Kind of looks like a vintage VCR from the front:
No dissing intended.
Looking forward to your listening impressions…
Enjoy.
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Vince,
I guess for DACs, it’s like Stephen Stills says, “Love the one you’re with.” You and Luca are teaching me that hanging out with high-end DACs can be very expensive.
I’m going to live by the words of Sheryl Crow instead:
“It’s not having what you want,
It’s wanting what you’ve got.”
In fact, I’m just beginning to appreciate how great the DS Mk2 is - especially for the cost - and I’m confident that Ted will work more of his magic on the sound of the Mk2 once the early operational bugs have been worked out. In the words of so many of us on the PSA Forum, “In Ted we trust!”
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Review #1 - Insert hyperbole because you finally understand it. Especially while listening to this recording:
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The Rowland 625 S2 is also setup this way. I agree, it’s preferable.
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That’s so true! I laughed out loud when I saw your post.
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Tubes in the gain stage.
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If I didn’t want tubes in the Pre, the CO-2 would be high on my list.
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Nice Rush Barchetta!
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Luca has it bad now. I’m guessing he’s sleeping and eating all his meals now in front of his MSB.
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I really like having a couple of tubes in a preamp, but not so many that tube changes become a major headache. Good luck with the VTL pre, Vince.
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Thanks!
I really like having a few tubes to tweak the sound of my system. It’s remarkable how they sound different across brands and types within the brand. I also like how quickly they settle in. Within an hour or so they are “broken in”.
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Congrats, Vince! Looks gorgeous and the rear panel is a triumph for people like me obsessed by symmetry! I like it so much, can’t wait to know how it sounds.
Tubes, it means love and hate, depending on the day. When all is working well they bring the magic in your life, sometimes they are the main culprit of something is not working well. You constantly live in a sort of precarious equilibrium. It reminds me the marriage! Wait, wait… you can always swap or replace tubes, I got a bad similitude!
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Not all tube preamps are as “quirky” as the BHK. The three tube preamps I have had since I sold the BHK just play when you turn them on. And a NOS pair of 6SN7’s will generally last for over five years.
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Glad to have brought to you a good reason to avoid this expensive irrational purchase, my friend. Hope one day you give back to me the favor!
After this unexpected discovery about SACDs limit (imagine my face when I realized that pushing the play button on PST something didn’t work!) I played a few albums, that I have in physical media, from Qobuz in Hi-rez and from the Statement in DSD.
Guess what?
Having only 5 SACDs in my large collection I can happily live with it, especially if the difference between streaming and playing discs is definitely reset. It’s all a different perspective, like accepting that USB on MK II works wonderfully good after years of veneration for the I2S HDMI Dragons.
Don’t tell my importer guy I’m so close to a final decision, even if I’m still forcing myself to keep calm and elaborate more cold conclusions after a few more listening days! You know, I’m italian, we tend to be passionate and irrational, we are all sons of poets and painters and musicians and directors and designers and bla bla bla… artists!
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