What Solid State PreAmp?

I'm sorry to bogart your thread a bit, but I have to ask why somebody would decide a priori to limit a preamp search to SS. With power amps, I can certainly understand, as there there are real negatives associated with tubes - heat, wear, etc. But most valved preamps have tube lifetimes in the tens of thousands of hours - it's a non-issue. As is heat. There are just no meaningful negatives with tubes in this area, and while there are some transistor preamps that sound just great, there are sure a lot more tubed preamps that sound *really* great and it seems to be much easier to do with tubes.

Just food for thought. Maybe you have reasons for limiting yourself to SS that I don't understand.

Dave,

Your Woo unit is a nice lil headphone amp but it is NOWHERE NOWHERE NEAR even a "good" tube pre. I had one too and used it as a linestage occasionally so I know.

Defining/deciding what tubes are "accurate" is no different than answering the same question for transistors, op-amps, resistors, capacitors, etc.

Dave,

Getting back to the thread late, you obviously have a point that tube-rolling has questionable merit depending on your PoV and what's intended.

There are really two motivations: system tuning and better sonics overall.

The first case is a matter of practicality - everything is colored and putting together a completely neutral system from the get-go (or not if that's not what you want) is not all that likely. So you tune - with tubes, cables, etc. In this case, the manufacturer obviously can't pick the correct tubes.

The second case applies to tubes of certain types and variants that simply sound superior to all ears, or at least have certain standout qualities. In these cases, the maker often *could* provide "the best" or at least better-than-chinese-stock tubes and sometimes why they don't is a slight mystery. (Cost and availability are obviously the answers..)

However, it is not true that tube-rolling is always an option: it flat-out isn't with my Shindo preamp. Shindo-san owns essentially all of the signal tubes of this type there are, from what I understand, and there is really only one variant as well. To your point, he *does* very specifically voice the unit to sound as good as he possibly can, and he don't want nobody screwing with those tubes. In this sense, these unit are no different from a SS counterpart at all. Since they do use tubes, which are naturally far more linear devices than transistors (except JFets??), their circuits are simpler, parts count lower, and heck if the best sounding pres don't all seem to be valved.