Over the years I've owned a couple of Coherence IIs as well as all of the iterations of the Synergy (I, II, IIi). Right now I'm quite impatiently awaiting the arrival of a Corus.
Guido's description is pretty much spot on and the last iterations of the Coherence and Synergy were just on the warm side of neutral. I was always a big fan of the Coherence and ultimately let mine go as I needed a pre with a home theater bypass input which could be selected by remote control (so that I could fully automate the system in my old house).
This was back in early 2008 and I looked at a number of preamps which were current at the time. I really wanted a Criterion, but the product wasn't shipping yet. I ultimately went a completely different route and picked up a VTL TL-7.5 Series II. While this unit solved my ergonomic issues it also showed me that the Coherence was limiting dynamics somewhat. While the Coherence was fully capable of reproducing a dynamic signal my feeling was that its rise time was a bit slow which made the leading edge of transients sound a bit muddy.
Don't get me wrong, the Coherence was an excellent preamp in its day, but has since been surpassed by a number of designs. I can't tell you how the Corus compares as I haven't received mine yet, but based on numerous conversations with Corus / Criterion owners (Guido included) it sounds as if the overall presentation has much improved over the previous designs. Since I was getting ready to pull the trigger on a pair of M925s I decided to order the Corus as well with the hope of a synergistic match between amps and pre.
As much as I love the Coherence and have very fond memories of it I would look to newer designs in order to take advantage of 15 years of progress in circuit and power supply design.
Guido's description is pretty much spot on and the last iterations of the Coherence and Synergy were just on the warm side of neutral. I was always a big fan of the Coherence and ultimately let mine go as I needed a pre with a home theater bypass input which could be selected by remote control (so that I could fully automate the system in my old house).
This was back in early 2008 and I looked at a number of preamps which were current at the time. I really wanted a Criterion, but the product wasn't shipping yet. I ultimately went a completely different route and picked up a VTL TL-7.5 Series II. While this unit solved my ergonomic issues it also showed me that the Coherence was limiting dynamics somewhat. While the Coherence was fully capable of reproducing a dynamic signal my feeling was that its rise time was a bit slow which made the leading edge of transients sound a bit muddy.
Don't get me wrong, the Coherence was an excellent preamp in its day, but has since been surpassed by a number of designs. I can't tell you how the Corus compares as I haven't received mine yet, but based on numerous conversations with Corus / Criterion owners (Guido included) it sounds as if the overall presentation has much improved over the previous designs. Since I was getting ready to pull the trigger on a pair of M925s I decided to order the Corus as well with the hope of a synergistic match between amps and pre.
As much as I love the Coherence and have very fond memories of it I would look to newer designs in order to take advantage of 15 years of progress in circuit and power supply design.