i can literally guarantee one thing regarding this new preamp.
the system you insert it into will have to resolve extremely fine detail, as in speakers that take no prisoners through the midrange, not to mention other components and some really decent interconnects as well. only then will you benefit from
some audio purity not found in the synergy or concerto, capri, etc. then the issue of the preamp being too "soft" or not dynamic enough (which if you care about stereophile, this is their common beef with rowland pre's) will have to be reversed by their "lofty" evaluations or simply ignored- the latter is my preference. they loved the levinson 32 ($17k), then a few years later decided that it now sounded "distant" and mechanical compared to halcro, bat, and VTL.
isn't it ironic that there are extremely simple preamp circuits and then there are massive 50 pound monsters (like the new BAT); both are considered class-A. a friend of mine bought a pass ALEPH-P awhile ago ($4k), and it was quietly considered almost as good as a PASSIVE preamp it was compared to (stereophile). the aleph-p is simple, pure class A, bal. or se inputs and outputs.
i will hypothetically put it up against anything you can use as an example of "so pure, so clean, etc." for 20, 30, 60 grand plus. maybe someone someday will go back to basics and perform such a test. yeah, there might be some diffeences, i'll concede that much. but how much? perhaps with the system cranked up really loud over monster speakers playing the 1812 overture...
