TRL Marantz Sa-14

I only heard of it from a fellow who is using a very expensive Japanese preamp in his very expensive system and he bought one! I had to listen to one so I took a long ride.
Well after hearing it I decided to order one. It does something special in the middle of the soundstage that I have never heard a preamp do.

I will try to explain. Take a balloon that haphazardly floats around and now add strings to it and a platform and now it floats consistantly, smoothly and can even carry people, this is what this preamp does. Pulls everything together and fills the 'spatial' information so well that when you return to your regular preamp, its like a hole. I am still trying to digest all of this and I am sure the TRL is part of this.

I can't wait till the TRL breaks in. I have barely 40 hours and what I am experiencing at this stage with my Single Ended stuff and this new preamp is very exciting!

Why the secracy regarding your new preamp? Could you fill us in on this? Thanks.

Are you guys using the balanced or single-ended (RCA) outputs of your TRL SA14? I have been told that the balanced outputs of the *stock* SA14 sound clearly better than the single-ended/RCA ouputs (even when you level match). I can't confirm this in my system since a) my SA14 is going to be shipped straight to TRL, and b) my Joule preamp only has single-ended/RCA inputs.

dracule1

Sorry if it appears that I am being secretive with this Preamp. The preamp is an overachiever and the problem with this is since its new to me in my system I can't be too specific until the TRL is broken in. The surprise here is the presentation is almost magical inspite of the TRL Sony having only 47 hours playing time.

I am trying to stay away from proclaiming this as a godsend. The truth is the Full Image preamp is doing something that is hard to describe hence my balloon analogy. It adds an inviting 'character' to the instruments and the sound is wonderful. I just feel so much of the rythm and pace of each piano key strike that its beyond what I have heard up to this point. Very involving stuff.

To put it another way, I was considering upgrading to the TRL SA-14. Now I don't feel the need to do this because of this preamp. If you have been around this hobby for awhile you can spot when a product does something special and this absolutely fits this category.

The designer is offering it direct and plans to keep it that way. So if you are interested send me an email and I can give more info. Its just not appropriate here.

I promise to have more information for you but for now what a pleasant surprise.

Glad you are pleased with the TRL 2000ES even if it isn't even broken in yet! It can only get better. I've had magic in my system without necessarily spending a fortune on digital. Admittedly using a Cary 303 as a transport (for which it is truly excellent), my 2 dacs (Mensa DI/O, Scott Nixon Tube Dac, each well under $1k) excelled with different types of music and allowed me to get totally lost in the music and forget all about analyzing the sound.

I am using a Joule Electra tube pre, which is known to be musical. Frankly, based on my comparison with the Eastern Electric Minimax, I think that the Joule gives up a bit of detail in exchange for musicality.

It seems like TRL is all about musicality, as this is a common comment about all their modded players. I'm looking forward to getting my SA14 from AVGuru to TRL then on to me in the next couple of weeks so that I can hear for myself what a TRL player sounds like.