I love my symphonies (non + version). Excellent design and build.
Tweaks: Rolled tubes to Electroharmonix Bugle Boys (12ax7). Inexpensive and a nice improvement. Replaced output wima caps with auricaps ($5 each). A nice improvement. Replaced output wire (factory stuff is silver plated 28 gauge single strand copper in teflon) with solid silver 28 ga in teflon - this reduced some mid treble grain.
In stock form, the unit is par for the price. Out of the box and broken in, it sounded almost identical to the preamp section of my NAD 350 integrated. In tweaked form it performs better or equal to anything I've tried up to the $1200 price range. Bass is solid, deep and taught. Sound is not overly warm. Resolution and transperency is excellent. Soundstage is wide, deep and tall. This tweaked unit leans toward the AR tube sound. Clean, fast and dynamic.
The output impedance is high, so there may be a few power amps out there that will yield some hiss. You must also let the preamp warm up for a half minute before turning on the power amp. My B&K ST202+ works great with it. Dead silent background. I am using Maggies 1.6qr with homemade xovers and an Onix CD-88 CD player with OPA627 upgrade (a terrific sounding player when tweaked this way).
Tweaks: Rolled tubes to Electroharmonix Bugle Boys (12ax7). Inexpensive and a nice improvement. Replaced output wima caps with auricaps ($5 each). A nice improvement. Replaced output wire (factory stuff is silver plated 28 gauge single strand copper in teflon) with solid silver 28 ga in teflon - this reduced some mid treble grain.
In stock form, the unit is par for the price. Out of the box and broken in, it sounded almost identical to the preamp section of my NAD 350 integrated. In tweaked form it performs better or equal to anything I've tried up to the $1200 price range. Bass is solid, deep and taught. Sound is not overly warm. Resolution and transperency is excellent. Soundstage is wide, deep and tall. This tweaked unit leans toward the AR tube sound. Clean, fast and dynamic.
The output impedance is high, so there may be a few power amps out there that will yield some hiss. You must also let the preamp warm up for a half minute before turning on the power amp. My B&K ST202+ works great with it. Dead silent background. I am using Maggies 1.6qr with homemade xovers and an Onix CD-88 CD player with OPA627 upgrade (a terrific sounding player when tweaked this way).