Pre amps cost vs. value ... what I discovered last month.


Greetings all.

I’m a mastering engineer. www.magicgardenmastering.com . We use Acoustic Zen balanced cabling, highly modified Cary 211 FE tube amps, Bricasti M1 SE DAs and Joachim Gerhard’s Allegra speakers. TORUS balanced power comes 220 from the street. The room is excellent, and you would love to hear it.

For 15 years the pre amp/router was a Crane Song Avocet. I paid around $1800 for it.

Recently decided to try a couple of audiophile products in the pre amp stage and was shocked and saddened how bad they were. Yes, the studio designed Avocet has a relay click for each 1db step, and yes it has a rack mounted 2U body with a corded remote, but it’s clear folks are really getting taken to the cleaners on pre amps. The older and highly regarded Boulder 1010 (used price $5500), was just terrible, truly terrible. The new and fully broken in BAT vk-43SE (demo price $7500) was much better, but still had a cloudy tone as compared to the class A Avocet. Not sure if that’s the cap or the transformer, but it made everything less clear and more generic, more distant from the music.

That’s all. Happy listening.
128x128brianlucey
@simeo in my experience those who are both too impatient or maybe lazy to do the research, and also so fast to be defensive and start quoting words that were never said to support their state of mind, are not rational enough to engage in a healthy way. So while I thank you for your support, I would caution you that some people are past engaging in reasonable replies once they get fired up. I can get fired up, and I can back it down. Yet I can read the tea leaves too.
My first post was IMO a sufficient explanation of the set up. My room, I would hope very obviously, is going to be better than 99% of the rooms that anyone here is using .... and since the room is maybe half the sound, that should be enough to engage with basic respect. Sure, I could have mentioned how I helped Bricasti to reprogram their filters after hearing a flaw in the the unit 4 years into it’s life in the market, and how my required mods are standard now for all M1 SE. I could have mentioned all the tube and cap testing done on the 211, or a host of techniques on listening and A/B comparison that I use that are never discussed online. But again, I get paid to teach. I didn’t think that was needed to converse here and it’s not fun for me to go there ... way past the nerdy gear lust stage, and proving my value stage of this game. My life’s work is elevating humanity by connecting one artist with one individual, very deeply, on a physical, intellectual and emotional level. Then the credits. Easily Googled. My clients at the top, can afford anyone in the world, last year four Billboard #1, and The Greatest Showman was #1 in 77 countries on iTunes. Many Grammy winners and Aria winners, etc. And that should all go without being said, available to anyone doing 4 slicks of research.
Back to work.   Let's keep this thread about Pre Amps, and costs and not get in the weeds any further.
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Jeff Rowland Consummate --> BAT VK-51SE --> BAT REX --> Atma-Sphere MP-1 --> Grace Design m905 --> 2400 Audio Imperium
So far I see 2 fingers pointing back at your initial finger pointing sir. Maybe, take heed of your supposed wisdom? 

"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw
dweller
Was just listening to the Moody Blues "In Search of the Lost Chord". My word, what a lousy sounding album. I wonder if there was a mastering engineer involved in its creation.
I loved this album, and have two or three version one being the MFSL, and yes there is no good copy of it very compressed, as this DR shows all green means good, only track 11 (The Word) has good DR.
And this site has never let me down on which one to get, click on the one with the highest and most green and you have the cat no of it and go search ebay for a used copy.

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=&album=In+Search+of+the+Lost+Chord

Cheers George