Artg,
Understood about your requirements. Still, I think you should hear as much of the quality gear as possible in order to see if the gear that you end up buying measures up.
A CAT can be ordered with XLR out, but it will not be balanced. Not sure about XLR AUX in. Of course, not much point in XLR without balanced circuitry. You are right though. Neither unit has remote.
Ethifi,
I haven't heard the Supratek models. I posted on that thread "Preamp Deal of the Century", offering to put my CAT and First Sound up against a Supratek, but there have been no takers. There has been at least one other thread where one or more responders rated the First Sound ahead of the Supratek. Here is one:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1082540209&read&keyw&zzsupratek+first+sound
Note the responses of Kalan and Noble110. Kalan has posted on other threads about the virtues of First Sound. Kalan and I have the same model of the F.S. which is one level up from the standard model typically sold. For some reason, his seems to be on sale currently here on Audiogon. With that one and a F.S. Paramount on sale, which is one step up from the F.S. Presence Deluxe 4.0 that Kalan is offering, there is a lot of great product for sale right now.
Understood about your requirements. Still, I think you should hear as much of the quality gear as possible in order to see if the gear that you end up buying measures up.
A CAT can be ordered with XLR out, but it will not be balanced. Not sure about XLR AUX in. Of course, not much point in XLR without balanced circuitry. You are right though. Neither unit has remote.
Ethifi,
I haven't heard the Supratek models. I posted on that thread "Preamp Deal of the Century", offering to put my CAT and First Sound up against a Supratek, but there have been no takers. There has been at least one other thread where one or more responders rated the First Sound ahead of the Supratek. Here is one:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1082540209&read&keyw&zzsupratek+first+sound
Note the responses of Kalan and Noble110. Kalan has posted on other threads about the virtues of First Sound. Kalan and I have the same model of the F.S. which is one level up from the standard model typically sold. For some reason, his seems to be on sale currently here on Audiogon. With that one and a F.S. Paramount on sale, which is one step up from the F.S. Presence Deluxe 4.0 that Kalan is offering, there is a lot of great product for sale right now.