John,
That is very good advice. Still, I bet lots of people besides me want to know whether you have any general comments about the respective characteristics of the Aesthetix and CAT preamps! ;-)
Would it be fair to assume that you had so many variables in play that the exercise didn't yield any clear favorite? Personally, I wouldn't bother to second-guess the designers of expensive equipment on their tube choices, at least for the sake of a basic competitive audition. Therefore I was wondering if you had started with a simple A/B comparison of the stock units with original tubes and identical cabling. If so, did you get any useful information at that point?
Thanks for indulging my selfish interest here. As you might recall, I'm trying to find a good match for my CAT JL-2 Signature Mark II amplifier; and CAT and Aesthetix were high on the list of want-to-hears.
Regards,
Bob
That is very good advice. Still, I bet lots of people besides me want to know whether you have any general comments about the respective characteristics of the Aesthetix and CAT preamps! ;-)
Would it be fair to assume that you had so many variables in play that the exercise didn't yield any clear favorite? Personally, I wouldn't bother to second-guess the designers of expensive equipment on their tube choices, at least for the sake of a basic competitive audition. Therefore I was wondering if you had started with a simple A/B comparison of the stock units with original tubes and identical cabling. If so, did you get any useful information at that point?
Thanks for indulging my selfish interest here. As you might recall, I'm trying to find a good match for my CAT JL-2 Signature Mark II amplifier; and CAT and Aesthetix were high on the list of want-to-hears.
Regards,
Bob