I love the Zesto, it has such a natural tone , you could say it is perfectly voiced for a preamp. Explosive dynamics coming from a jet black background. Great detail and huge Soundstage. Whats not to like? It is a great pre.
It has been very reliable, it’s on for hours every day. No issues. It did have a bad tube socket. With very high efficiency speakers there was an occasional faint noise in the right channel. I traced it the tube socket. They don’t make the tube sockets so unfortunately it was a bad part, no fault of Zesto. I sent it in, for a VERY reasonable fee George replaced all sockets with the new style gold/ceramic ones. I figured it’s in California it would be stupid to not do the ESP Power supply thats in the new units.
Before taking delivery of my Toolshed 300b Amp, I was talking to Matt about his latest preamp . It’s a DHT and promises to be the perfect match to what is a phenomenal amp. I’ll be selling the Zesto soon, but I can say its the best sounding pre I have ever owned or had first hand experience with to date. It’s good stuff.