Opinions please on older Sony ES Pre-amps

the Soney ES-1000 Pre amp i bought in the philipines is working great the amp also the only problem im having is the remote was chewed by my dog and now i have to get up to change anything.

Never heard of Patricia Barbara. Jon

The Sony TA-E1 Sony preamp sounded why better than the Bat 51SE in my system. I thought that the Bat sounded more like my Sony(e.g. Solid State wise)...but the Sony is alot more detail and smoother.

Jonsonneborn,

Are you a Patricia Barber fan? Reading between the lines I could sense from your post (second last line, a little rich for my blood). If so don't even think of retaining the Sony!

So far no one has said anything too good about the Sony DM1000ES. The model does have the "DM" I know because I downloaded the owners manual from Sony. I purchased this on e-bay this week paid $162 including shipping, but havn't received it yet. It was sort of an impulse buy because I had a Sony ES 2 Channel receiver about 12 Yrs ago that I remember sounding great (powering an old pair of Boston Accoustics A100s and a pair of A60s) I will at least try the pre-amp, but have a feeling I will go back to the Adcom until I have the funds to buy something better that has the remote. I looked at that Audio Research LS-15 that Glen mentions, but it's a little rich for my blood right now (getting married later this year). THanks for everyone's help. Jon

I use to run a TAE9000es into a five channel adcom amp. The sound wasn't to bad maybe a little colored, unfortunatly I don't think it will sound better than your adcom piece.

Why don't you try an Audio Research LS-15? This piece has a remote and I bet it would light those B&W's up. In it's day it was very highly rated.

I owned The Sony TA-1000 ES pre amp for a few years in the late 80's . I dont recall the model having the letter DM in it ? . But my honest opinion is that it will sound horrible.
It was made when the word "digital" was just coming into public consiousness. Revolutionary for its time, but antiquated for today.

I tested one of the expensive Sony Preamps from the ES series recently (the preamp was dating back to late 80's. I personally did not like the sound of the preamp as it had sort of coloured the sound and not to my liking. It was surely built like a tank and was very heavy. If you can try it in your own system see if you can relate to it and it gives you the sound it should rather than alter it.

For what it is worth, I had a TA-2000ES. I paid $1000 for it new, and thought of it as a $300 pre-amp coupled with a $700 digital sound processor.