Top Ten Tube PreAmp of all time?


This thread for you tubeguys.Nominate your favorite tube Pre Amp of all time. More info for audiogon members the better. Remember some members are just starting their high end experience.
ferrari

Showing 2 responses by larryi

My favorites are custom-built linestages made by Aldo D'Urso, an Italian builder/designer.  He uses mostly vintage parts, including Western Electric capacitors and transformers.  I have one of his custom linestages that employs output transformers and uses Western Electric 310 and 348 tubes.  The one concession to modernity is that he put in a motorized and remotely controlled volume pot to accommodate my laziness.  

I have heard other models that he made that are extremely expensive and nice sounding.  One has a pair of output transformers that, the transformers alone, cost about $20,000 a pair if you can find them.  

Of slightly more commercial availability, I have heard and liked both the Audio Note (uk) M-10 and M-8 linestages and I also liked the Kondo M-10.  Shindo also makes some good linestages.  At a much lower price point, the top-of-the-line Atmasphere linestages sound good too.  

Around 20 years ago, I went to my dealer to audition the Stax 007 Omega II headphones.  They sounded great, so I ordered a pair along with the Stax tube amplifier/energizer.  When I got it into my system, it did not sound nearly as good as what I heard in the dealer's setup.  When I asked about that, the dealer informed me that I auditioned the headphones while they were being fed by a Kondo M-10 linestage, which, of course, sounded much better than anything I had (or could hope to have). that is why it makes my list.

Although I am primarily a tube-electronics person, I would not turn down a Lyra Connoisseur phono stage.  I heard the most explosively dynamic and vibrant analogue playback in a system having that solid state phono stage.