Really? I can't see from the specs or description what sets this preamp apart. Have you heard it? Could you explain more?
World's best Pre-amp for $10K and above?
Looking for the HOLY GRAIL in Audio? Here it is. I'm in my early sixties and retiring to my final system, which I was going to purchase during the past twelve months and decided to put on the brakes, and investigate whats out there as the most advanced engineered high end audio products for the money in the market place. As far as I'm concerned, the two top engineers in the world for the best Amp and Preamp at low prices are Bent Holter with Hegel Audio in Norway and Roger Sanders with Sanders Sound in Colorado. Why? The Hegel P-30 Pre-amp is a game changer, and will easily compete with Pre-amps at $30K and above. The FM Acoustics 268 Preamp that retails for $107K, uses a technology thats called "feedforward" instead of feedback.
Amps and Pre-amps since the early 80's have all used either global feedback, zero feedback or local feedback to filter out noise and lower distortion by sending and filtering the feedback current to filter capacitors or or an extra filter transformer. A small amount of voltage feedback occurs at the output stage in amps and preamps which goes back into the parts and boards causing noise and distortion which smears the quality of the music.The best Preamps in the world all have S/N noise ratios at 125 db's or above. The Hegel P-30 Preamp uses the same feedforward technology as FM Acoustics but is a more current design that Bent Holter calls "Sound Engine" patented technology that eliminates feedback which is why the P-30 Preamp has a S/N ratio of 132 db's, which has never been accomplished in high end audio with a Preamp costing $10K or below. The same applies to Roger Sanders Magtech amplifier which uses a patented linear voltage regulator that controls and regulates voltage with no excess voltage going back into the amp causing heat and distortion problems. The amp puts out 900 watts into 4ohms. Krell makes a pair of mono blocs that also use a similar voltage regulator. The amps are $100K a pair. HERES THE PERFECT SOLID STATE SYSTEM. A Hegel P-30 Preamp. A Sanders Magtech amp, A pair of Aerial Acoustics 7T speakers. The worlds finest SACD player, the Playback Designs MPS-5, designed by Andreas Koch, who invented SACD technology when he worked for Sony. He built the worlds first outboard DAC in 1982 and is legend in digital engineering. The MPS-5 is the most analog sounding player on the market which costs $17K. The Hegel P-30 is only $7500.00 and the Magtech amp is only $5K. The Aerials are $10K. Buy the solid core cables from Morrow Audio. They are low capacitance cables which matches up perfectly with these components. This combination sounds like the very best tube and solid state gear on the market. The whole system will cost about $42K but will sound as good as any system costing $200K. All of these products are game changers. If you want better looking cabinets and faceplates, then blow your money, but you will not get better performance for what this system has to offer. It is the HOLY GRAIL you are searching for and there is no better combination for the total cost of the system.
Amps and Pre-amps since the early 80's have all used either global feedback, zero feedback or local feedback to filter out noise and lower distortion by sending and filtering the feedback current to filter capacitors or or an extra filter transformer. A small amount of voltage feedback occurs at the output stage in amps and preamps which goes back into the parts and boards causing noise and distortion which smears the quality of the music.The best Preamps in the world all have S/N noise ratios at 125 db's or above. The Hegel P-30 Preamp uses the same feedforward technology as FM Acoustics but is a more current design that Bent Holter calls "Sound Engine" patented technology that eliminates feedback which is why the P-30 Preamp has a S/N ratio of 132 db's, which has never been accomplished in high end audio with a Preamp costing $10K or below. The same applies to Roger Sanders Magtech amplifier which uses a patented linear voltage regulator that controls and regulates voltage with no excess voltage going back into the amp causing heat and distortion problems. The amp puts out 900 watts into 4ohms. Krell makes a pair of mono blocs that also use a similar voltage regulator. The amps are $100K a pair. HERES THE PERFECT SOLID STATE SYSTEM. A Hegel P-30 Preamp. A Sanders Magtech amp, A pair of Aerial Acoustics 7T speakers. The worlds finest SACD player, the Playback Designs MPS-5, designed by Andreas Koch, who invented SACD technology when he worked for Sony. He built the worlds first outboard DAC in 1982 and is legend in digital engineering. The MPS-5 is the most analog sounding player on the market which costs $17K. The Hegel P-30 is only $7500.00 and the Magtech amp is only $5K. The Aerials are $10K. Buy the solid core cables from Morrow Audio. They are low capacitance cables which matches up perfectly with these components. This combination sounds like the very best tube and solid state gear on the market. The whole system will cost about $42K but will sound as good as any system costing $200K. All of these products are game changers. If you want better looking cabinets and faceplates, then blow your money, but you will not get better performance for what this system has to offer. It is the HOLY GRAIL you are searching for and there is no better combination for the total cost of the system.
Showing 22 responses by atmasphere
Kana813, certainly nothing like what is being claimed in this thread! We have found though that if you want tubes to be quiet, you have to do very similar things that the transistor designers do- fully differential, with excellent regulation and 2-stage constant current sources. We developed a proprietary voltage regulator that gives our supplies some of the best numbers in the business, and to date I think we are the only manufacturer using 2 stage CCS circuits in our differential amplifiers. Plus we have that patented direct-coupled output, a real game-changer :) Of course the entire preamp is zero feedback and I think we are still the only manufacturer that has sorted out how to do differential equalization, a real game-changer :) The noise floor on our line stage depends on low noise tubes but is typically in the 100 db range, so its quiet on horns. Sorry if I am being a bit flippant; when I hear cliches like this sometimes it bothers me, especially when its obvious that the user of said cliches has not seen/heard everything thing out there that might have an innovation in it. |
I have listened to master tapes in studio's many times over the years and have two friends that are recording engineers with state of the art studios in their homes. I doubt very much you have listened to the MPS-5 player. Andreas Koch who is considered the best digital engineer in the States, worked in the Studer broadcasting studio's in Switzerland as a designer, and also worked in the Dolby Labs studio's as a designer as well in addition to the digital design work he did for Sony. Sorry- Now I am really not buying it. If this is true for you it explains why the Sony stuff sounds so bad. I'm calling you out: either you have serious hearing loss or else the systems listened to were utterly lousy or you are lying. The master tape will smoke the digital copy every time. |
the most organic and analog sounding SACD player, the Accuphase DP-700, damn pricey and hard to find used. We ran one of these in our room at CES for a few years. It was handily beaten by the Stahltek playing the same cuts on Redbook. I have heard Sony master tapes of the SACD process sound excellent, but have yet to hear an actual player of SACDs that brought home the bacon. Its no surprise to me that SACD has become a dead thing. |
Audiozen, I can guarantee that the noise floor is not going to define the sound quality of any preamp, once it has gained acceptable levels. But excessive low noise floors do make me suspicious. A more important quality might be how the equipment reacts to a signal rather than the lack of one. BTW, I could not listen to any of the preamps you mentioned- I like music to sound natural, for the equipment to not draw attention to itself, which is a failing of most of the brands you've mentioned so far. |
The circuit should work the same regardless of the cap. Once it works, then the choice of cap is not for 'voicing', which is a tonality issue, but which one can bring out more detail (which, BTW, it should do in any circuit). IOW, any given cap should have the same audible qualities regardless of the circuit. So they should not be playing any serious role in the voicing- that is to say if we install cap X, we then have to make changes y to compensate. Follow me? If not, perhaps a definition of 'voicing' is in order! You should be able to use any good quality cap and get excellent results. Its important to understand that the circuit is the foundation of the preamp or amp, not the caps and resistors. |
However, all of this products are voiced subjectively to have a different sonic character from one brand to the other. I think we can be quite certain that this is incorrect. I doubt that any of these preamps are 'voiced'. I don't know how things like that get started, but 'voicing' is not something that a competent designer of amps and preamps would engage in. Rather, they would just go for the best performance they can wring out of the circuit. At best what we have here is another competent transistor design. Best? Not by a long shot. Good? Sure. Excellent. Maybe... but not best. No way. |
You were saying?... You will note that I used the term 'competent', as in: no competent designer will voice a preamp or amp. The reason you hear those differences is often nothing to do with voicing, but rather distortion. Our ears hear distortion as tonality, which is why two preamps can measure absolutely flat on the bench, but one will sound bright (due to trace amounts of odd ordered harmonic distortion) and one will not (lacks the odd ordered harmonic distortion). If the designer engages in 'voicing' they immediately introduce additional distortions or colorations that will limit the usability of the preamp! Instead they go for flat frequency response. ';Voicing' is poor engineering practice in amps and preamps (BTW with speakers this is a different matter). So the key word here is 'competent'; any designer telling you they voice their preamp is also telling you they have no idea what they are doing. Sorry, just stating a simple fact. If a designer has to engage in such practice it is because there is an inherent flaw in their design- instead of a bandaid approach, they simply need to find the flaw and correct it. |
Solder: use a eutectic type to avoid bad solderjoints- pay attention to the alloys as they have different uses depending on the connection. IOW there is no one best solder for all solderjoints, but this is an engineering issue, not a matter of taste. If you find yourself disagreeing, I advise you to take a NASA soldering class or the like. Wire: different types of wire have different applications and of course there is always a quality issue. However if you know what you are doing you can spec the correct wire for the application in such a way that one would be hard pressed to find a better wire. The wire you might use in a hand-wired high impedance application will be very different from a speaker connection. IOW, this is an engineering issue. Transformers: We don't use output transformers so I will limit this to power transformers, but the quality here is important as customers don't like noisy parts and they have to hold up and not get too hot. Not surprisingly if the transformer is under-specked it can affect the sound... This is an engineering issue. Caps: Many audiophiles will be amazed to learn that electrolytics can perform as well as good quality film caps; this has entirely to do with how well the designer understands the characteristics of the part (many don't.). Similarly, such understanding applies to film caps as well, for example what characteristics will work the best in an EQ circuit. A good cap will have good specs- you can see which one will sound better as a result. Certain principles are poorly understood; for example in coupling caps its a super bad idea to bypass a large cap with a smaller one (smearing occurs) but we see this all the time. IOW, this is all engineering. I can go one but I hope that my point was made by the simple use of the word 'competent'. To put this another way, I spec V-Cap Teflons in our designs and did not have to audition them to know they would work fine (it was obvious from the specs), and this was proven in the results. If you know your engineering, you don't have to 'voice' (not saying that you don't verify your results either- that smacks of incompetence as well). Do I make myself clear? Voicing speaks to the designer not understanding the materials, swapping things in hoping for a decent outcome. My recommendation is to pay attention in class when you are at the university, however I hope its not a great shock to find out that a lot of designers didn't go to engineering school. BTW since it was missed by some in a prior post I am only speaking to amps and preamps- definitely not speakers. Speakers can be a bit of an art, and there is the issue of how the amp and speaker interface, and the intentions of the designer. For more on this see: http://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/Paradigms_in_Amplifier_Design.php |
You can tailor the sound through the topology. For example, a purely-single-ended design will exhibit a 2nd order harmonic distortion which will give it a rich sound. If no feedback is used, it will not be harsh until pushed hard, but will feature dynamic character far above its actual power. Yet it will also have great inner detail as distortion vanishes at lower power levels. Sound familiar? Sunn, a well-known guitar amplifier company, used to make a line of transistor amplifiers back in the 1970s that were recognized for their rich sound. They employed a single-ended zero feedback FET preamp which was primarily responsible- that 2nd harmonic was the richness. A tube amp with a single-ended input and a push pull output will exhibit a 2nd harmonic with a prominent 5th. The 2nd will be less than that of an SET so it will be less rich, and the 5th will contribute to brightness and some hardness by comparison. Choosing what topology IOW says a lot about how the resulting circuit will sound. The art part of it is understanding the human hearing perceptual rules, as in general the audio industry tries its best to ignore them. So designers have to educate themselves about that subject, and sort out what it is exactly that they are trying to do. IMO this is still engineering, but I can see some calling it 'art' and maybe it is... |
Grannyring, OK- I have to admit that I run into engineers that rely entirely on specs. Decades ago I used to work at Sperry Corporation on something called the Eagle Project. What I saw there is borne out in my own experience- that an engineer that does not go down to the test floor, see how things are going, talk to the technicians and the like working on the thing is also an incompetent engineer. There are just simply things you have to take into account! So a competent engineer will always monitor the actual product rather than sit behind his desk. In audio that means you have to listen to it. And yes, components make a difference; I think my point is you start with the circuit, and the specs which should provide 99% of the sound of the unit. In my work, I never rely on 'synergies' which is what we could well talking about here- using components to shut down a brightness, or to brighten up something that sounds dull. I've played with a lot of high end caps and resistors and in particular with the caps I've not found that many that had problems- most of them sound fine. But I *have* seen a few that were problematic- and when you delved into the construction details and specs, it was easy to see why. It may well be that what I do is called 'voicing' by others but I've yet to *have* to use a particular cap or resistor to make something sound right, although I avoid cheap parts in that regard (for example Xicon caps can sound quite bright). Usually the higher end parts are simply adding nuance and almost never anything tonal. I do not just rely on specs to determine the musical Am I the only one that sees the contradiction in this paragraph (compare 1st sentence against the rest of the paragraph). Audiozen, you are completely mistaken about specs in this paragraph, for example 'damping factor' mostly has a basis in mythology. There are speakers that need a damping factor of 1:10 and others that need 10:1. There are no speakers that need more than 20:1. So why would an amp with 1000:1 be better? The simple answer is it probably isn't. What is going on, just on that subject alone has to do with how the amp interfaces with the speaker. For example the fact that tubes are still around 60 years after becoming obsolete should tell you that the audio industry does not have a good answer for that. For more look here: http://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/Paradigms_in_Amplifier_Design.php The distortion thing is also counter-intuitive. Ultra-low distortion, IME indicates that while the unit may measure well, its highly unlikely that it will get complements on its sound. This is because what distortion it does make will likely be elevated amounts of odd-ordered harmonics which the ear finds unpleasant and depends on so heavily to determine sound pressure. So we can hear trace amounts that are almost impossible to measure. |
Audiozen, I can only assume that you did not read the article at the link I posted earlier so here it is again: http://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/Paradigms_in_Amplifier_Design.php The top mega-buck solid state amplifiers all have None of these are what I would call the top transistor amplifiers and they all sound pretty much the same to me. You may disagree with me, but that does not make what I said any less correct (I tried not to waste my time at MIT Minnesota). There really are speakers out there that need an amplifier with low damping factors and they will sound terrible if you use such amps as you listed. And no speaker known to man needs more than 20:1. Damping factor is mythological. |
Charles1dad, I tried real hard but I could never get those MIT caps to sound right to me, if I used them as a coupling cap. If I am not mistaken though, the MIT uses several caps in parallel in a single package. I have found that to be a bad move in a coupling cap (although it can be just fine as a bypass in a power supply)- whenever there is a bypass in a coupling cap, smearing occurs, and causes troubles in the high frequencies. So I figure you use one cap and give it your best shot. The problem is that in tube preamps, you often have to have a very large cap at the output, and even if its the best Teflon or paper and oil, its still going to have an adverse effect due to the size required. So I came up with a direct-coupled circuit, basically side-stepping that problem. Another, rather surprising way to get around that problem is to go with an electrolytic! I know, I know, most audiophiles think electrolytics are terrible and they have good reason to think so. The problem is an electrolytic will not function correctly unless it is polarized with a voltage. In a tube preamp this is easy (you should try it!), but in a lot of solid state designs the designer neglects to polarize the caps and so they introduce distortion when the waveform charges the cap in the wrong direction! **That** is where electrolytics got their bad reputation. If I have not made the point clearly in this post, the bottom line is that as a designer you have to watch what you are doing with caps. The MIT above is a great example- a good cap, but don't use it for coupling. Same thing with electrolytics, but make sure that the DC across them is always more than the total AC waveform they will pass if you do that they will easily give good quality film caps a run for the money!). See what I mean? |