APL NWO2.5 ?

Chungted, what is the mystery pre that you found to be detrimental to the overall sound of your NWO-2.5-driven system?

Guidocorona
Comparing the sound with or without my pre-amplifier from NWO-2.5, the former is slightly less transparent and has weaker impact. I will not use strong words as "detrimental to overall sound".
The same pre was a perfect match with my CEC TL-0 transport + Audio Synthesis Discrete DAC. I have other system in my Canada home, using the same pre for Oracle transport + Audio Synthesis DAC. They also produce excellent sound for me. In both latter cases, with-pre sounds better than without. (Audio Synthesis has volume control. I let the volume of the pre stay at maximum and addjust the volume on DAC.)
Please allow me not mentioning the brand name of my pre. It is in fact a very good one (so I own two sets). It uses 6350 NOS tubes for gain stage. It probably is just not matching NWO. I will try the OTL mono blocks of the same brand in future.

I must say it is frustrating when a poster compares equiptment but does not disclose the actual name of the equiptment used in the comparison. It kinda makes mentioning the comparison useless to everybody besides the poster.

I do thussly stand correct Chungted. . . I really meant to say. . . what is that unmentionable pre that is slightly less transparent and has weaker impact than pure NWO-2.5? Per implication with OTL amps, if your pre were Atmasphere, having heard the reasonably competent Atmasphere and the world-class NWO-2.5 in separate rooms at the Denver AudioFest, I am not surprised of you finding the sound of your system with the interpolated pre to be just slightly wanting.

Audiosu, I'm kind-of in the same boat as you. While I certainly believe in the source first, my speakers are from 1980, and they have one woofer that is just glued in, and inconsistent fasteners for the rest of the woofers and tweeters. It is this last thing that bothers me the most. You have to admit that we have an avenue to upgrade our players. It is exciting-which is how I would describe APL's players! I'de also like to mention Earflappin's suggestion about Alex's interconnects. I don't completely understand it, but on Alex's system, it made my very fine interconnects(which are used on my APL 3910) sound uneven. Alex's interconnects opened up a whole area in the highs that my interconnect overlooked.