Any information about the Classe 5L pre-amp?

I don't have the specs, but I do own this pre-amp and it matches well to my Classe 25 amp, which is driving my NHT 3.3's. It's a very neutral sounding pre and is built rock solid.

I owned a Classe5 many years ago and thought it was a quite nice peice.Sound was "tube like" .A touch on the dark side (but not much ) Very smooth and listenable. The only problem i can see is the age of the peice.Though made to last a long time ,its been a while since the manufacturing date..If you can find a good,low hours peice and you dont mind a little warmish sound go for it ,but just remember it a bit long in the tooth........

A local dealer loaned one to me for a demo a few years ago. The sonics were certainly good, but it did not improve on what I had at the time all that much. The build quality was there, but the input selector was noisy and I did not want to go through a possible return to Canada for a replacement. [Classe does offer excellent customer service.] I suppose the dealer could've performed the surgery but my tube-buffered passive was still superior in my system. Note that Classe power amps of this vintage often sell quickly and are obviously still sought after, even though they were made a long time ago, esp. in audio years.

I think the 5 has a "direct" switch and has balanced I/O connections which should be used if possible,

One caveat: The gain is 18 dB, way too high for a CD-based system but many manufacturers are guilty of this also. 20 dB seemed to be the default value in tube preamps, maybe this is a holdover from those days. If you can give it a try in your system, by all means do so.

I have owned both the Five and the Five linestage, excellent preamps reagrdless of the system they find themselves front-ending. I have also owned the DR-6 and the Six, and I am awaiting the arrival of yet another Six this evening.

I have tried so many preamps in my system over the years, I am returning to the Six because I can't find another pre that presents the music in such an organic fashion. The Five is not that far behind the Six in any respect, I find the one area of any significant difference is in the image developed by the Six vs the Five.

With respect to age, the Five is a solid state pre, meant for a lifetime of enjoyment - buy one, send it to Classe for a full check up, and enjoy it for the next ten years.

Good luck!