Jeff Rowland preamps

Guido, I received the Capri and I am very impressed with it. Great find. It has I believe at least 1000 hours on it. Dead quiet, great soundstage, and good imaging. Built quality is what you would expect from Rowland. Best value I have found for a pre.

Thank you Cyrus, isn't the little darling wonderful? The more I use the Capri the more I love it. Of course Capri is very sensitive to power cords. . . I have preferred the Shunyata Anaconda Helix Alpha this far, compared to PAD Anniversary and Cardas Golden Ref-- because of harmonic integrity an overall linearity. . . but I will be trying a few more PCS in the not very distant future.
Of course, Capri won't be ideal for everyone. . . it's not for those who seek the classic midrange 'glow' of tubes, nor for those who are questing for the ultimate ironfisted energy of some SS. Yet to me, it makes Music the way I like it. G.

Guido, since it appears that you have good communication with Jeff Rowland, has anything been done or is planned to fix the balance display situation?
I really like the Capri, I still have a second silver unpacked unit, but as hard it is to disagree with general positive feedbacks, I am still perplexed with the above very serious miss.

Audiofil, I don't understand why you think that the lack of a balance read out is such a "serious miss." Yes, it when be convenient when setting the balance in initial setup, but why would you ever touch it again after it's set? I actually set my balance with speaker placement and never move the pre-amp off center, but I can understand why some might use the balance control, but only once.

Maybe I'm missing something.

Dave

Audiofil, I understand your pain. You are correct in that lack of visual feedback on left/right balance on Capri may be somewhat annoying for some. The limitations are as I explained elsewhere, historical. while the signal-sensitive circuits of the Capri are state of the art, for cost control reasons, The Capri's control circuits are exploiting legacy designs/hardware components used by JRDG since the early '90s, including the seven-segment numeric display. Future designs are likely to include a more sophisticated display and firmware capabilities. Currently, the only thing one can do on Capri is to turn the volume down to 0, select an unused input, then press the pause button for 5 seconds to reset the firmware.

From a purely personal point of view, most amusingly, anything that JRDG does with more elaborate visual I/Os in the future. . . will not yield any better usability for me. G.