EAD is out of business. If you want a better sounding but also out of business pre/pro go with the California Audio Labs SSP 2500. I have owned them both and the Cal is far superior.
EAD lovers: tell me about the $10K TM Sig Classic
I want to hear from any 'philes out there who have (or have heard) what some still say was EAD's best sounding prepro. Yeah, it was "only" a 20 bit machine, and it didn't have 5.1 analog bypass, but how would it compare to some of the newer stuff out there, like an Audio Refinement Pre-5 or McCormack MAP-1, or even a Krell HTS2 or 8800Pro? I'd like to get a feel for whether it could still hold up purely as a multichannel preamplifier, and what its sonic characteristics were like.