Don Sach's pre amp

"Since I have had the privilege of having VTA-SP14 in my home for two weeks and also having listened to the Candela Pre-amp. I can tell you the build quality of this pre-amp is head and shoulder above the VTA-Sp 14 the sound quality . No match ! at least 50/60 % better."

Sorry but I can't figure out what you mean here.  Can you clarify which has better build quality and sound quality and maybe add what the specific improvements in sound are?  Would be most interesting and helpful.  Thanks!

@soix @kalali Yes between the three pre-amps I have heard in my home environment, I like Don Sach's 2 as the best of the 3  , again this is very subjective based on my listening tests and "ears"
Build Quality: better parts, point to point wiring , to me  DS 2 is very revealing, no brightness, realism in voices, vocals are good , bass is just about right ! do not hear any tube sloppiness sometimes you get with lower class pre amps,  very quite. However the unit is not cheap but considering the fact it competes with higher priced units and is  custom built  it is perhaps fairly priced at its price point . Hope that helps.

kalail, I suspect Don is too busy to have time for much internet posting.  I think it is a one-man operation, other than building the cases.  So I'll share what I believe to be the development.

First off he has a long-standing reputation for restoring and upgrading classic tube gear such as HK Citation, McIntosh, Marantz, etc.  Somehow he had the opportunity to examine the circuit for the VTA-SP14 and was impressed by the potential.  But he felt it could be improved by selective parts upgrades.  So he ordered the board and built one to test.  Being satisfied with the initial results he then refined that and began offering his own version, with the blessing of VTA.  After all, they reference Don's version on their own site.

Since then it has been word-of-mouth promotion.  That's how I learned about it and I couldn't be more pleased with my DS2 SP-14.

Hi all - wondering what DAC you are using with the DS2 SP-14 (if any), and if one DAC sounds better than the other in your demoing. I recently upgraded to Triton Reference speakers and am backfilling to upgrade other parts of the system now since the speakers sound so good. Considering doing a Sachs pre-amp with bells and whistles (remote especially), paired with a Sachs KT88, but I will need a DAC in there too as will likely stream Tidal MQA (maybe via a Bluenode 2?). Thoughts? Thanks for posting your opinions here and on other threads about the Sachs products, it has been valuable.

Also - is the remote control on the newer Sachs preamps something that can be programmed into Harmony etc? (maybe with the learning option?)