2. amps-preamps
  3. 136421-89400

Pre amps cost vs. value ... what I discovered last month.

Greetings all.

I’m a mastering engineer. www.magicgardenmastering.com . We use Acoustic Zen balanced cabling, highly modified Cary 211 FE tube amps, Bricasti M1 SE DAs and Joachim Gerhard’s Allegra speakers. TORUS balanced power comes 220 from the street. The room is excellent, and you would love to hear it.

For 15 years the pre amp/router was a Crane Song Avocet. I paid around $1800 for it.

Recently decided to try a couple of audiophile products in the pre amp stage and was shocked and saddened how bad they were. Yes, the studio designed Avocet has a relay click for each 1db step, and yes it has a rack mounted 2U body with a corded remote, but it’s clear folks are really getting taken to the cleaners on pre amps. The older and highly regarded Boulder 1010 (used price $5500), was just terrible, truly terrible. The new and fully broken in BAT vk-43SE (demo price $7500) was much better, but still had a cloudy tone as compared to the class A Avocet. Not sure if that’s the cap or the transformer, but it made everything less clear and more generic, more distant from the music.

That’s all. Happy listening.
128x128brianlucey

Showing 4 responses by charles1dad

charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,236 posts
 
Brian,
Okay I understand your view of  relating Wide dynamic range to an older style/era of sound. I enjoy recordings that preserve dynamic range as it heightens emotion and realism.  I can also recognize that not everyone feels this way and may prefer the more "modern"  compressed sound. Certainly a case of to each their own which is okay with me. 
Charles 
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,236 posts
 
"Men like to measure, and are plagued by fear of not measuring up"
A keen observation. .
Charles 
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,236 posts
 
Tomcy6,
I don’t believe that your views of music compression/loudness is the minority you think that it is. If it is that doesn’t diminished the validity of your comments. I respect Brian’s stance regarding this topic however I’m certain that there are other Audio/Mastering engineers of similar talent and experience who share your concerns regarding compression and dynamic range.

Recordings that preserve dynamic range hardly sound dull to me, to the contrary is the case. Even amongst the professional audio engineers there’s definitely different points of view. Not every engineer has succumbed to this recording technique.
Charles
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,236 posts
 
Hello Brianlucey,
I appreciate your sharing of experiences and perspective from the vantage point of a professional in audio recording. You have made some very interesting observations in regard to the listening experience.

I absolutely agree with your comments about emotional involvement and connecting with the artist and their music. I’ve always believe this is the entire point of listening to music. It is a very subjective and personal interaction and thus by default will vary amongst individual listeners.

I’ve written in this forum on several occasions that the audio components capable of permitting the higher degree of emotional connection and musical enjoyment are the ones to buy and keep. If an audio component or system fails at this task what else matters or can make up for this glaring deficiency? BTW I’ve had the opportunity to hear Boulder components and my overall impression is similar to  yours. It seems the quest for ultra detail retrieval can "potentially" result in an analytical/clinical presentation and lack the vital emotion and soul touching aspect of listening to music.
Charles
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