Love my new amp and pre-amp


Several months ago I got the itch to upgrade my hifi system and it's turned out so well (imho) that I thought I'd write a short post.  I'm not going to try and write a critical review of the different pieces because I lack both the experience and the requisite reference gear.  But I know what I like...and will simply share that I really, really like where things have ended up.  My speakers are Paradigm Persona 5F's.  I think they're amazing.  My amp is the Electrocompaniet AW 250R and my pre-amp is the Manley Neo Classic 300b.  What a great combination.  I had a chance to speak to an audio design engineer the other day that does warranty work on EC products.  He had a lot of really good things to say about EC's design and build quality.  And while I can't really compare the Manley to other similarly priced tube pre-amps I can say that it's really added a completely new dimension to my system.  Dynamics, air, seperation...all in spades.  My primary source is a Lampizator Amber 3 DAC.  I love it.   So there you go...if anyone is interested to hear more I'd love to trade stories.  Also I'd like to quickly thank Dave at Audio Intellect for the great recommendations and service.  It has been a real pleasure..
bh123

Showing 2 responses by ghdprentice

😃😊👍

Take your time. Get to completely know the sound of your system and let it fully break in. All my Audio Research gear is supposed to take 600 hours of use to break in. While most of the real obvious change was over the first 250 hours… I did notice it continued to 600. Then I noticed more subtitle changes over the next 400. I had heard othe people mention this… but had not noticed before. When you really know the sound of your system and it is at a high level of performance small differences can be really obvious. This is when you want to take off your gloves and do tweaking. 
Congratulations. Looks like you made some excellent and synergistic choices based on my knowledge of those products. You’ll have years of great listening ahead.