New H20 Signature S250

Hi guys. The Signature upgrade is definitely worth it. I'm one of Henry's original "launch customers" and early last year purchased three of his S250s for tri-amping my Apogees. Well after a few months I started bugging Henry to try taking the S250 to the max..a signature version. After several months of phone calls and strategizing, he came up with stacked transformers, better caps, faster diodes, silver wiring plus other goodies. Right around X-mas, Henry said he was ready to give it a try so I sent my three amps back to act as guinea pigs. They had turned the 500-hour corner and were really opening up so I was a bit hesitant but boxed them up.

Boy am I glad I did! I'm at about the 1000-hour mark on these guys and they are definitely more open and transparent than the originals. The bass in particular is now very tight but bouncy and meaty too. I feel no need or desire to re-install my Tact amps and this is very high praise indeed. Excellent all the way around.

They DO need lots of break in. Henry actually sent me new amps as he really liked how the others sounded and wanted to use a couple of them as demos (which people keep wanting to buy!). Right out of the box I really didn't care for them but I knew better. I break amps in by running TV sound and cable fm thru them 24/7 so I can build up hours fast. After 100-150 hours their tonal balance settled in but the imaging was vague. At the 300-hour mark, things were much more organized but also still a bit "dark". The next time I listened to them seriously was at about 600 hours. Man what a difference! Very open & dynamic. And now at the 1000 hour mark they are superb and very artifact free with that sense of reality that the Tact amps have when driven via their digital inputs but with a DRIVE the Tacts don't have via the big Aps.

Like the Tact amps these guy really do benefit from being plugged into my PS Audio P-600 and then individually fed thru an ultimate outlet.

Perhaps tomorrow I'll get the chance to here one of them driving a friends big Sound Labs (currently being fed by the Parasound JC-1s). That should be interesting.

Jeff

Lloydf,

Feel free to drop me an email and I could give you more info on other preamps I have used as well, however - in a nutshell I think the First Sound Presence Deluxe Mk II would be the best of both worlds of the two preamps you have just auditioned. The First Sound Presence Deluxe Mk II is a tube preamp, however it does not sound like a tube preamp in the classic, tubey sense. The music emminates from a drop dead, quiet background, is rythmic, dynamic (both micro and macro), and has the drive that usually only SS preamps have. However, being tube, you also get the liquidity and texture of the instruments and vocals. Do a search in the forums here, as there is a thread running now over the past month or two on the FS PD MK II... Drop some NOS tubes into the preamp and this is a keeper.

I have paralleled your experience in trying many preamps in the past. Most were good, however excelled in one area and left you wanting for a bit more in another. This preamp will be staying in my system. If anything, I may splurge down the road and upgrade it to the 4.0

Again, feel free to email with any other questions. I am no expert, and have not tried hundreds of preamps out there, however it is difficult when there aren't local dealers to audition the gear you are trying to gain some insight into, thus I would be more than happy to offer any experiences I have had in comparisons.

You mate the right preamp with that combo and I think you will only need to worry about what music you will listen to next... :)

Jeff
Let us know how they sound on the Soundlabs!

Thanks
Chuckie

Thanks Muralmanl! One year doesn't seem like much, but I have not had any problems with my almost 2 year old eAR amp. I am looking forward to hearing what a beefy power supply can do to the ICE module. Grk.