2. amps-preamps
  3. 136421-89400

Pre amps cost vs. value ... what I discovered last month.

Greetings all.

I’m a mastering engineer. www.magicgardenmastering.com . We use Acoustic Zen balanced cabling, highly modified Cary 211 FE tube amps, Bricasti M1 SE DAs and Joachim Gerhard’s Allegra speakers. TORUS balanced power comes 220 from the street. The room is excellent, and you would love to hear it.

For 15 years the pre amp/router was a Crane Song Avocet. I paid around $1800 for it.

Recently decided to try a couple of audiophile products in the pre amp stage and was shocked and saddened how bad they were. Yes, the studio designed Avocet has a relay click for each 1db step, and yes it has a rack mounted 2U body with a corded remote, but it’s clear folks are really getting taken to the cleaners on pre amps. The older and highly regarded Boulder 1010 (used price $5500), was just terrible, truly terrible. The new and fully broken in BAT vk-43SE (demo price $7500) was much better, but still had a cloudy tone as compared to the class A Avocet. Not sure if that’s the cap or the transformer, but it made everything less clear and more generic, more distant from the music.

That’s all. Happy listening.
128x128brianlucey
brianlucey's avatar
brianlucey OP
58 posts
 
Parts matter, yet Dave Hill knows what he’s doing.

Avocet distortion is in the range of .001% at +20 dbu -3db is up between 200 and 300KHz

My listening tests are not "respectable"? A rude and ultimately hilarious reply.  Listening is what I do all day every day, for hire by others who can afford anyone, and not for fun. The credits are all online. Have a great day.
simao's avatar
simao
656 posts
 
Props to the OP. There's always a self-important contrarian ready to pick and pounce despite any initial ethos. 

I suspect the synergy in your room reveals a lot when a part of it is replaced. 
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
4,163 posts
 
Great post.  Cranesong is highly respected.
jond's avatar
jond
3,400 posts
 
Brian you tried two preamps with poor results. It doesn't mean you learned anything other than those two units were a poor fit for your listening tastes and system. Glad to hear your old Avocet is holding up and sounding good but don't give up the search,  there are many good preamps besides those two.
Also great to have such a respected mastering engineer in the forums you have some amazing credits. Lastly a question,  you describe the Cary amps as highly modified, if you had to modify the amps to get the sound you wanted do you think modding one of those preamps might have gotten you where you wanted?
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