Preamp Deal of the Century

Hello, I have been following this thread for a while now and finally pulled the trigger and ordered a Chardonnay preamp from Mick a few weeks ago.Total time from my initial talk with Mick to the preamp arriving at my doorstep...one week! He says that is the norm now that he has some additional help . I was a little leary of buying something sight unheard and half way around the planet! (I"m in south florida).But big thanks to Raytheprinter and Allanbissett for allaying any such fears!This preamp replaced an aging audible illusions l1,and what a replacement! Everything Ray, Allan, and you guys said about the sonic qualities of this preamp are right on the money and then some! I have a friend that could care less about this high end stuff and was familiar with my sytem..well the first day I had it playing in the background as he passed by the room and the first thing he said was "sweet sound!" never had commented on my old system! lol Even my girlfriend is playing cd"s on the system more than ever.Well just thought I"d say hi and put my 2 cents in.....time to roll some tubes now!

Oh,I forgot in my previous post to thank Slowhand for starting this amazing thread.Thanks dude !

On the subject of power cords...I have had a power cord,the "Source", from DCCA Audio burning in on my Chardonnay for a few weeks now.MY impressions so far? It has the same qualities as I noticed upon first inserting my Chardonnay into the system.Increased resolution,dynamics,musicality,truth in timbre etc.What this cord really excells at is a non fatiguing presentation, the recreation of a live event,a major upgrade in my opinion.I"ve used several other cords such as Electraglides,Cardas,Tice, Groneberg,Nordost Valhalla...none of these even came close to what the DCCA can do.These are fairly reasonably priced and can be home auditioned. The one fault of these cables? They are stiff as hell! Very large cords that might not fit all apllications

Viclondon...I know on my Chardonnay I always flip the HT bypass switch to the rear, or "on" position before turning off my preamp to avoid any turn off thumps.Mick said its the same as a mute switch...I dont have a mute on it because I had Mick install a tape bypass switch instead. Thats how mine works anyway...since others have had bad experiences with this you might want to double check with Mick first.And Slowhand and Baranyi.hope to catch you at the audiofest and any other "goners attending! Rick

I just asked Mick about installing v caps in my Chardonnay and this was his reply... "Richard I hate the V-caps- they re brittle and harsh sounding- some think they have "detail", but that's their call not mine"