Kevin,
Electron Images is owned by Mike Kerster, formally of Sonic Frontiers (SF Pre 3 design chief). He is now designing and manufacturing for Audio Note UK. He has designed and built I believe (four) Amati Preamps that are two piece state of the art tube preamps with MM/MC phonostage. It retails at $12K, but have seen one posted on the Gon for something like $5,500. The guy who bought that unit got a steal. This preamp does everything right, but takes alot (literally months) of break-in. It sounds analytical and dry prior to break in, but really opens up with time. I don't know if Mike is going to make anymore, but I would put mine up against any preamp built today. The only thing I don't particularly care about the Amati is the high gain. With my 18 WPC Audio Notes and 94db AN speakers, I can't crank up the dual mono volume controls too high. I'm actually using the MM phono with a MicroBenz MC (Reference) cart. Like I said, high gain!
Rob
Electron Images is owned by Mike Kerster, formally of Sonic Frontiers (SF Pre 3 design chief). He is now designing and manufacturing for Audio Note UK. He has designed and built I believe (four) Amati Preamps that are two piece state of the art tube preamps with MM/MC phonostage. It retails at $12K, but have seen one posted on the Gon for something like $5,500. The guy who bought that unit got a steal. This preamp does everything right, but takes alot (literally months) of break-in. It sounds analytical and dry prior to break in, but really opens up with time. I don't know if Mike is going to make anymore, but I would put mine up against any preamp built today. The only thing I don't particularly care about the Amati is the high gain. With my 18 WPC Audio Notes and 94db AN speakers, I can't crank up the dual mono volume controls too high. I'm actually using the MM phono with a MicroBenz MC (Reference) cart. Like I said, high gain!
Rob