Best Preamp under 10K


Okay how about voting for best preamp under 10K. Its a tough call between the Levinson, Krell,Rowland, AR, CAT and numerous others, but I think I must go with the Levinson 380S. What do you think?
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Showing 1 response by carl_eber

If you need an affordable phono stage, the Mike Yee Musical Surroundings "Phonomena" is killer! I don't know what the best linestage under 10k would be, but I would audition the CAT Ultimate, Sonic Frontiers Line 3, ARC Reference 1 or 2, Levinson 380s, Krell KCT, and even a used Conrad Johnson ART...PERHAPS ALL AT ONCE. That would be the only way to know for sure which one you like best. Probably not a realistic task, I guess. IF YOU'RE ONLY GOING TO LISTEN TO CD, THEN FORGET A LINESTAGE unless you get upsampling DACS like the dCS combo. I THINK THE WADIA "POWER DAC 790" would be interesting to hear, since it accepts a 192 kHz digital signal. That's more than $10k, though... AND IF YOU ONLY LISTEN TO VINYL, I doubt the Aesthetix "IO" can be beaten, perhaps driving the power amp directly. The Jeff Rowland "Cadence" phono is THE quietest phono stage...