best preamp ever - cost is no object

Nice thread. As usual some good technical advice admixed wth some verbal assaults on people's character. Always amusing! My comments will relate to the tennis analogies made earlier. In my youth I was amongst the top 10 tennis players in the world (under 18 years of age), and have played against Andre Agassi, Boris Becker, and Stephan Edberg, and some others that I can't remember. I have seen many of the best play as the heroes of my youth were Borg and McEnroe. It is difficult to compare generations because the equipment is so different today. You cannot be sure that if someone is the best player in the world with a wooden racquet, that he would even be in the top 50 in the world with the modern racquets. The game is that different today. I remember watching a replay of a Borg McEnroe wimbledon final 15 years after it was played, and I couldn't believe how slowly they were hitting the ball! That said my opinion is this. The greatest tennis achievement is by Rod Laver. He won the grand Slam twice, seperated by approximately 9 years. The first time he won it was as an amateur. Then he turned professional and was not eligible to play in those tournaments again (the grand slams were amateur tournaments until the "open era" began in the 70's). As soon as he could play in them again, he won the grand slam again! Who knows how many times he would have won the grand slam had he been eligible all those years. After that you have to give the nod to Federer. If you have seen them all, he does everything as well or better than anyone preceeding him. The caveat, there will always be some questions about his legacy if he never wins the French. He has a more suitable game to do this than most others that have won wimbledon. In my opinion, if you put any previous player gainst him, and give them whatever racquet they want, Federe will beat them all. I will give an honorable mention to Agassi, who played a more difficult style of tennis that Sampras, although Sampras' record is arguably better. Sampras' major count is padded by his dominance on grass.
Thanks for endulging the thoughts of a (relatively) old hacker:-)
I have a Boulder 1012. Has anyone compared the 1010/1012 series to the 2000 series Boulder equipment and have an opinion on the difference?

I've test driven many preamps and so far I like the CAT Ultimate 2 the best.

Just a clarification with respect to my earlier comment. The Einstein has 5 inputs, 2 single ended and 3 balanced. Assuming 2-7308's per input (1 for each channel), that would equal 10-7308's for the $1000 that I quoted or approximately $100/tube, not $500 per tube. I should probably also mention that the same dealer had some very good NOS East German tubes for $19 each. These were significantly better than the stock Electro Harmonix tubes but not the equal of the Siemens 7308's. Whether the improvement was worth the money is a personal decision that will be different for different listeners.

Fcrowder,

Does the Einstein use separate input tubes for each input instead of just switching inputs and running everything through the same amplification path? If so, that would allow someone to customize tube choice for each source component, but it would be a costly design choice for the consumer, particularly if all those tubes are switched on all of the time.

"A couple thoughts":
Fred, I don't want to come across like I'm picking on you so please don't take it personal but even at $100 per tube it still sounds to me like you and other tube rollers are trying to play an expensive game of trial-and-error "tone control" with these different "Flavor" tubes! It has nothing to do with "Whether the improvement was worth the money is a personal decision that will be different for different listeners", BUT the "approach" that is used to advance ones system to the next level.

The tube rolling is exactly the same kind of silliness as buying or experimenting with the $2,400.00 Acrolink Mexcel 7N copper power cord that you and Rhyno recommend.

Hey this is a free society and everyone is allowed to use their money as they see fit BUT to me it seems foolish to spend these insane amounts of money on trial-and-error "tone control" through tube rolling and power cord selection when there are electronic devices out there which will give you predictable, repeatable, defeatable and scalable tone-control and beyond, per their original design!

My idea of a perfect system always starts with the ability of the system to be neutral and as true/faithful to the "Master Tapes" as possible; from that point on you as an individual are free to tailor the sound of your system according to your personal preferences.

Which is where I'm at, I now have a system that can be adjusted on the fly to cater to "your" idea of the perfect sound or the "Absolute Sound" and which can dynamically/on-the-fly be readjusted to the person next to you idea of perfection.

I believe that a gentleman in my deleted thread said it best:

To some, sound reproduction is a hobby where tube rolling, cable swapping, isolation devices testing and such are fun and exciting but to me it is not only an art BUT a science, which I strive to advance in the level of realism everyday through the use of my knowledge of mastering/recording techniques, physics, acoustics, psychoacoustics and electronics.

I'm still hard at work on my book, "The Great Audiophile Swindle!" which will expand further on these thoughts and others.