What Solid State PreAmp?

Hello Mike,
I have been through dozens of preamps over the past 40 years.
It was the most frustrating part of upgrading my system.
I believe that the rest of my system, given room limitations, is the best, in my opinion, that money can buy.
I finally found a preamp where I have no longer a desire to upgrade.
It's called the SMc VRE-1, a design from the inventor/master of tweaks and upgrading other manufacturers' designs, Steve McCormack. He founded The Mod Squad in the 70's. Three + years went into the design of this marvel. It is sold at $7,500., factory direct.
My guess is that it would sell for 15-20,000 through dealers.
Check out the review from Positive Feedback. I, too, wrote a review, my first in 40 years, so worthy is this preamp of "getting the word out" for serious music lovers/audiophiles.
You will be stunned by its performance. I can detect no flaws. A first! Steve is a friendly, approachable engineer.
Give him a call or send me an E-mail for more about this breakthrough product.

I have all Ayre equipment. Personally, I hate MBL..sounds like a German tank...heavy with no finesse.

IMO, to dismiss tube preamps is a mistake.With a tube pre you can roll tubes and play with the sound.Heat is never an issue and tube life on preamps is non even in play as they last for years..I personally like running a SS amp with a tube pre...

Missioncoonery, yes I agree, but think about tube rolling a little bit. I've got a little single-ended, Class A headphone amp by Woo Audio. It's wonderful, BUT I can change it dramatically by simply changing the recifier tube, replacing my $10 Russion tube with a 1950s metal base Holland GZ34tube that ranges in cost between $300 and $700, IF you can find it.

The improvement is HUGE in my headphone amp example and it's still not as good as my Rowland SS. I don't see the "advantage" of tube rolling. You've got a high likelyhood of worsening your tone, not improving it. Why would you want to introduce such a big variable into your system??

It's one thing to roll tubes on my guitar amp, where the idea IS to color the sound, but on my high fidelity two-channel system I only want tubes that are "accurate" and "transparent", yet such a thing is hard to define, much less find.

Dave

I now run all tube amplification (linestage, phono and amp), but I do own a couple of solid state linestages (Placette Active and Levinson No. 32). For the money, the Placette Active is a very good linestage -- dynamic, open and detailed, and it projects a very large and realistic sounding soundstage (for a solid state unit). The Levinson is more "refined" sounding (less artificial "edginess"), but is a touch dull and unexciting compared to the Placette.

I have also heard systems with Ayre preamps that sound quite good. I like the clean, "fast" and nimble sound that Ayre electronics manage to produce while being substantially free of the artificial edge to the initial attack of notes that makes a lot of solid state gear sound a bit mechanical and artificial to me.