AN Niobium versus Tantalum resistors?

Just not with a pen

ahh… a book on tape?

I recently tried the Audio Note Niobium 1W resistors in my preamp. I put them in the signal path inputs, in place of TX 2575 (naked Vishay Z-foils). I'm a fan of the Z-foils, but using too many is too much of a good thing. Over time, I noticed the result was a little lean and hard sounding on some recordings.

The Niobiums have better tone color, maybe just a tad more depth, and cured the problem. In terms of transparency/presence and low noise, they didn't give up much, if anything, to the Z-foils. It was a worthwhile trade-off. I still have Vishays on the outputs. They pair well together.

Lots of good information in this thread - THANKS!

Don’t overlook the importance of resistor tolerance. The difference you hear may be (probably is) variance in actual resistance affecting the ability of all circuits in the signal path from meeting the designer’s objectives. Subtle variances can be cumulative and substantially different between left and right channels to skew imaging across the spectrum in non-linear fashion. For these considerations I move that using 1% resistors should minimize the above variances significantly more effectively than the nuances of exotic metals or compounds.