Raul, My source for the notion that you use the MAT02 in your preamplifier is.... you. You told me this in a personal email a few years ago. In the same email, you in effect congratulated me for choosing it. Or perhaps I misunderstood you; perhaps you just meant that you liked the MAT02 in general and did not mean to imply that you used it in the preamp. It doesn't really matter to me. I did not choose it at random; I chose it based on direct personal advice from Allen Wright, who told me he would use it in his RTP3C, if cost and availability were no problem. (Read his book "The Preamplifier Cookbook"; the MAT02 is now out of production, so far as I know.) If I am wrong in my thinking that you use the MAT02, thanks for the correction. It seems you are reluctant to divulge just what transistor you do use in your unit, but isn't the term "discrete bipolar" an oxymoron? The MAT02 and 03 are "bipolar" in that each contains two matched devices in one shell. If you use discretes, one for each phase, then you don't use a bipolar. Since the matching of the two halves in the MAT02 and like bipolar devices is fantastically tight, far tighter than one can get with matching tubes, I don't know what you gain by using discretes, except aggravation trying to match them. But that's your business and your preference.
In mentioning the CTC Blowtorch, Vendetta, and MFA Luminescence (which I think is over-rated by modern standards), I was only trying to side with you, by suggesting that your Phonolinepreamp may eventually assume similar long term "status", and therefore enhanced value, among audio aficionados, who are nothing if not snobbish when it comes to expensive yet unobtainable gear. I was not at all implying that your preamp is worse, or better, than any of the above.
And finally, neither you nor I nor anyone else can prove by winning some sort of verbal debate that one piece of equipment is better or worse than another. Words don't suffice. And, whether you like it or not, emotion plays a huge role in how one chooses one's components.
In mentioning the CTC Blowtorch, Vendetta, and MFA Luminescence (which I think is over-rated by modern standards), I was only trying to side with you, by suggesting that your Phonolinepreamp may eventually assume similar long term "status", and therefore enhanced value, among audio aficionados, who are nothing if not snobbish when it comes to expensive yet unobtainable gear. I was not at all implying that your preamp is worse, or better, than any of the above.
And finally, neither you nor I nor anyone else can prove by winning some sort of verbal debate that one piece of equipment is better or worse than another. Words don't suffice. And, whether you like it or not, emotion plays a huge role in how one chooses one's components.