budget diy tube preamp beating many expensive preamps... problem with my system?

It could possibly be the cables. I wonder why you bought cheap ones when you spent so much on the rest of your gear.

It's not the cables, it's the simple circuit design and the use of the 6v6 tube. These types of tubes in a preamp give a big bold sound with better air and instrument separation in my opinion.

@invalid what would be an upgrade from this then

I will eventually get better cables. Tbh the Amazon rca cables I have seem better built than my custom tedd allen cables.

It is a question of values. What you call good may not be what I call good.
 

What I call good has changed over the course of the fifty years I have pursued high end sound. Slowly with experience I was able to listen deeper into more aspects of sound. Then about twenty five years ago I began to activity pursue listening to as much live an acoustical music and individual instruments, and my values changed considerably. Before this, upgrades in my system would make one kind of music sound better and all the rest would sound worse.
 

I realized that accentuated details were getting in the way of accurate representation of the music. Finally, I got what rhythm and pace really was… the attribute that gives the music the emotional connection and makes you want to move. All this ultimately brought me to all Audio Research equipment.

YOu do have some red flags in your system, especially the power strip.  I doubt you are hearing anywhere near the capability of your amp.

that said, a simple tube system will often outperform a complicated integrated circuit with swiss army knife features.

Jerry

What 6V6's have you tried?

Couldn't find tube rolling info for the Moreplay.

DeKay

Try buying decent cables,the Wireworld Eclipse is a excellent cable

snd is built better then most  at 2x its cost.and better parts quality.

I’m sure my heavily modded phono preamp sounds better than many models three times the price. The price doesn't guarantee sound quality.

Don’t underestimate a DIY amp, properly designed and built.

Especially Bottlehead.

Not paying for the distribution network, a fancy box, or the labor to assemble it.

it can be because of some system matching issues.

You also do not explain where there are sonic difference that you prefer compared to the other units.

So a happy accident. You found after trying several other more expensive preamps that a simpler and less expensive DIY preamp brought out better sound. Enjoy your good fortune.

Wow so the problem was my power. I had a waudio power brick. My buddy let me borrow the puritan psm 156 and the system sounds incredible now! ET5 is far superior and the system sounds so transparent, tonally nuanced, dynamic and just beautiful. This was with the upgraded power cable.

My friend told me to optimize my power first before comparing gear.. he was right. Jeeez !!!

@carlsbad2 you called it

@dekay none just stock 

There is plenty of support for the Moreplay as a very worthwhile Pre'.

I have only used Build Your Own Pre's, my latest one being produced to a design that is not the standard seen on offer.

The Moreplay has been compared to my choice for a 'Build Your Own' Pre-Amp in its standard build guise and the assessor has preferred the Moreplay.

A version of a upgrade build guise, my choice for a Pre-Amp has been compared to Pre's up to £5K, with the outcome it has not been seen to be outperformed. 

There are upgrades for the Moreplay that can be considered, along with these, I would heartily recommend the Internal Signal Path Wire is exchanged for PC Triple C and the Chassis Mounted  RCA connectors are a Low Eddy - Pure Copper design. I can't see the additional costs for the upgrade and my suggestion extending beyond $300 

There is great value to be attained when selecting certain 'Build Your Own' Pre-Amp designs, the search can prove to be very long to discover a alternative and if a Branded Item, might require multiple $0000's to have it used in a system. 

@smodtactical  the only other preamps I know of that use power tubes in a preamp is space tech lab. He has preamps that can even use kt150/kt 170 and many others.

Interesting. But Puritan was the key. Et5 sounding beautiful.

You have a nice buddy!

I would not let Puritan 156 out of my system.

It made a huge difference in the sound.

Congratulation on your success with DIY pre amp.

Thomas

@smodtactical 

If I remember correctly you lived in the Toronto area?  If so reach out to Steven at Audio Sensibility also in Toronto about trying his cables.  Even his base Impact IC's are OCC copper with Furutech connectors.  If you e-mail or call him you can go by the facility.  Internet direct so no middle man markup.

@jackd you mean for rca upgrade ?

@shkong78 did you try any other power products? My other buddy going to loan me a reference 20i Furman to compare

@smodtactical 

The RCA's would be a good place to start but I would also talk to him about speaker and power cables as well as conditioners as he makes all of them. Get his opinion of a plan to follow.  The PSM 156 is a great place to land for a conditioner as I have two of them and they do what they claim as you found out.  Being local to you he would be a good person to get to know.  

@smodtactical Contact Teo Audio in Kingston. They offer a money-back guarantee on their IC cables, if you don’t like them (no questions asked).

Trust me, you won’t return them.

Smodtactical,

You have tens of thousands of dollars of gear, do yourself a favor and replace the cheap RCA cables. Really good cables can be had for not a lot of money, look at: Morrow Audio (MA4), DHLabs Air Matrix, Zavfino Arcadia or Fusion, LavriCables Reference or Ultimate Silver, Cullen Cables Copper or Crossover, or Supra Trico or Supra EFF-ISL (found on eBay).....don't think a single cable is more than $300, and will be huge upgrades and more worthy of your equipment.

Dude, you have a NS5000.....Yamaha designed a beautiful preamp called the C5000 (an engineering masterpiece) to go with that NS5000. You should get that preamp and do the type of tube toking that pleases you with some tube dac instead.

On the same note, get rid of the dumass amazon rca cables and get some Audioquest rca interconnects.