Counterpoint SA-5000 or First Sound Presence Pre

Hi Mikesinger, it is not cost effective to produce hi end gear when the market is so small. Home theather and internet are part of the new hobbies people enjoy. Spending over $3000 on a preamp is out of question for most of the audiophiles these days. Many folks believe they don't need preamp when they can do just fine by using high output CD player direct into the amp.

I'm pretty sure every company have defective equipments. How many percent is consider normal? It depends. On the average, 5% defective rate is quite normal in the computer industry. As I said before, we have 5 units of SA5000s here among me and my friends and none of them ever gone bad. I agree that the earlier side mount tube socket counterpoint unit has weak chasis, but the SA5000 era was improved with top mount tube sockets. As far I as I known, my friend's Audible illision 3A more trouble than the SA5000. The tubes died quickly in less than 2 years. The unit always very hot with smeared sound and extremely tube sensitive. Not to mentioned the customer service is terrible (confirmed by at least 5 dealers here in NYC.) I don't know about you but I don't think Audible illusion is doing any better job than Counterpoint. I do own both Arc SP-11 MKII and SA5000 and both units were top at their times. Why are Japanese audiophiles think highly of SA5000 sound? It must have its attractive characteristic they recognize that other preamps don't offer. Especially the price you get for an used SA5000 with execellent MM/MC stage, you can probably only get a decent phono stage and you need to spend at least another $2000 for line stage.
If you have not noticed in the past 10 years, all the good audio gears has gone to far east. Please don't tell me that all these folks have no ears and can't tell the difference between good or bad.

You can be as subjective as you want but there are still many Counterpoint SA5000 fans out there that stands by it.

ps I never said First Sound is bad so I don't see why folks need to attack Counterpoint to make themselves feel better about their stuff is far more superior than everything else. Sometimes I questioned if these folks are trying to keep their equipment's resale value higher by bashing other products. This is just my speculation in general and nothing against anyone who post something against the SA5000.

I cannot comment on First Sound products,however I have had several Counterpoint amps and preamps from 1988 to present and have never had a problem and as stated above now that the maker[Mike E.]is on his own,they are a good deal on all levels.Good luck and Happy Easter all,Bob

I don't think that Mike Singer, nor anyone else here is trying to unjustly make claims about Counterpoints reliability just to increase the value of their gear. I don't see how that is possible either.

It is common knowledge that Counterpoint gear was very unreliable. The word within the industry was that Mike Elliot was losing distributors and dealers due to reliabilty problems and that units arrived to dealers broken. Unfortunately, they went out of business. Strong companies do not lose the banks support, as suggested at the new web-site. Strong companies do not leave print shops and suppliers with unpaid bills.

Wow, quite a vocal thread here! I must chime in for my support for Counterpoint and Michael Elliot. Mikesinger clearly has a lot of unfortunate history with Mr. Elliot but my experiences are much different.

I got a used NPS400 severely damaged through careless shipping by the seller and Mr. Elliot made so much effort to get this unit repaired and upgraded to the level I could afford. And he was very detailed with all the options and benefits. In just a couple weeks I had the amp back and what a pleasant surprise it was over the ARC Classic 150 amps.

As a fan of ARC products since the early 80s, and an owner of many such models, I was quite suprised at how the NPS400 embarrassed the CL150s. The NPS400 was far more tonally balanced, not fatiguing nor forward like the ARCs, and simply put, was a far more musical presentation with the Thiel 3.6, Talon Khorus and Magnepan 3.5 that I owned.

The ARC CL60 which I owned a few years back was quite a good little amp, but neither it nor the CL150s are even remotely close to the NPS400 in sheer naturalness. It just too a change to the Wolcott mono amps to truly bring on a significant refinement over the NPS400 to drive the Magnepans.

I have to disagree that what we need is a company to give us a sound that returns to the ARC hybrid days. No thank you! The SP-11, SP-15, LS2, Classic series, amps, etc.....no thank you! "Yawn, where's the music?" Give me the all-tubed SP-8, SP-10, LS5, VT130/150 amps any day. Like I said, I'm a huge ARC fan here, but Counterpoint simply did a far more musical job than ARC when it came to hybrid products. And yes, reliability is an issue, but I too had some catastrophic events with tubes blowing in the VT130 amp. It was not pretty with power resistors exploding in the process! But I have been fortunate to live only a few minutes from the ARC facility.

I guess until I experience a reliability problem with the NPS400, I can only talk of the positive sides of Counterpoint and Mr. Elliot. Both the ARC staff and Mr. Elliot are first rate with customer support.

John

jes45@aol.com, in case you have not noticed, most of hi-fi shops are slowly going out of business. It has to do with lack of interest and customer rather than just on reliability factor. I also heard rumors that Audio Research is filing for chapter eleven. The small shops are the ones that can really survive. Since there are almost no overhead for small shops, they don't need to borrow much money from the bank.
I would like to suggest that it is your view and not common knowledge that all the Counterpoint gears are unreliable. I think the marketing has more to do than reliability. I believe that Counterpoint lost the market share has a lot to do with product choice. They did quite well before they moved to SS equipment.