I have the Atmasphere mp3 mk3 with all silver vcaps.
@zipost Your System page shows an MP-1, not an MP-3. FWIW, we don't recommend NOS 12AT7s in the phono (as seen in your system photos) as they tend to be too noisy. I agree that some of the NOS tubes sound better, but its very rare to find examples these days that are actually quiet, simply owing to the fact that audiophiles have been scouring the countryside for them for the last 50 years.
Your system page suggests that your power amp is single-ended. I agree it can be quite tricky to make this work with a balanced preamp, since single-ended and balanced are inherently incompatible (if this isn't handled correctly one result can be buzz of some sort). However I don't agree that the phono section is hard to use, since all phono cartridges these days are balanced sources- with the MP-1 its plug and play with a balanced tonearm cable. You don't have to worry about loading (even though the phono section does have a loading strip), because the phono section is immune to the RFI generated by the cartridge/tonearm cable combination.
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The main advantage of the MP-3/MP-1 line section is its direct-coupled (balanced) output. We patented the technique (actually there are two patents now), which is part of why the MP-3 and MP-1 are so far the only tube preamps with a direct-coupled balanced output, until the introduction of the Allnic.
Both The MP-1 and Allnic can drive a 16 ohm loudspeaker (and as a result, headphones too). IOW, both preamps actually have a scaled-down power amplifier as the output buffer. There are not that many ways to execute a direct-coupled output! I'll be very interested to see/hear how Allnic has approached the issue.
