My Freya arrived a few days ago and the supplied tubes sounded fine with no bothersome hum, which is a good thing. I have a lot of "hum busting" in my rig with bespoke filtering power supplies and quiet cables as I’m a seriously noise averse listener. The "mystery" supplied 6SN7s seem a little microphonic (and interestingly they have no numbers or writing on ’em at all…a first)…I replaced them anyway with new version Tung Sol 6SN7GTBs (I had these already and knew the tone…an underrated tube I think, especially for a newish product) and man…a really nice sounding preamp all around. I’ll be trying to find more of my fave Amperex tubes (I use the NOS USA Amperex 6SN7GTB supplied with my SEP power amp, and bought a spare as it sounded so good) and RCAs so tube rolling shall continue…I like it! The passive and FET settings do sound VERY similar, and I have the same issue with those settings not quite having the output to drive my 12 watt per side SEP amp…for soft background music those setting work, but hey…the tubes are on all the time anyway and provide more than enough gain. My previous preamp is a heavy monster with a 10db extra gain adjustment that I got very used to, so I had to adjust to the Freya output. I’m now adjusted. I also have Silverline Preludes, albeit the earlier version and they’re amazing, but I might get more efficient speakers at some time…no hurry though as damn…the rig sounds so sweet (2 REL subs keep things balanced). The Freya keeps breaking-in it seems and sounds better than initially (and that was pretty damn good), and fits well with my highly recommended Schiit Loki (off most of the time but is there for instant tonal first aid if needed). The Loki really is a gem and everybody should get one…now…go get one...
