Luminous Audio Axiom passive pre any good?
Please read my Axiom review |
I did a 5 preamp comparison last summer and the AXIOM was one of those in the test. The short answer is yes, this is pretty good, and for $150 with the Caddock upgrade some might say it's fantastic. However, this didn't turn out to be my favorite among the five preamps I tested. Three were active tube stages and two were passive units. I thought the AXIOM was much better than the Antique Sound Labs Passive T1 DT. The T1 DT sounded bloated and was too dark sounding, while the AXIOM exhibited better balance, less coloration, and much better inner detail. Tim at Luminous Audio asks every purchaser of the AXIOM to supply him information such as the output voltage of the source, input impedance of the amp and the sensitivity and efficiency of your speakers so that he can custom match the AXIOM to your system. This is a very good thing, since having no active gain stage could present problems as some sources don't output enough juice to drive an amp. The one thing that I felt was the downfall of this little guy was that it couldn't match the size of soundstage that two of the tube preamps created nor did it have the large sense of scale these preamps also had. I ended up keeping the AXIOM, because for $150 I couldn't let go of something this good. I'll be reinserting it in my system this weekend to aid in testing of other tweaks I've been making. The damn thing is so small even in its box, I'll have to search all over for it! What else are you considering? |
