APL NWO2.5 ?

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.

I am currently using MIT oracle V2.1 interconnects on my APL 3910. I did not jave a chance to compare it with Alex's silver interconnects. I am happy with the V2.1 but interested in Alex's cable.

Guidocorona, if it's 6350 tubes perhaps he's talking Joule, not Atma (6SN7). Not to quibble but the Atma MP-1 is far better than "reasonably competent."

There are very nice sounding preamps available, no doubt about it. I also have my own preamp design which has been sitting on the shelf unused for 2 years now.

Except for switching the sources and eventual phono stage built in, the preamp main function is impedance matching and attenuation (volume control). A preamp would be a benefit for any audio system in most cases.

The NWO-2.5 has enough output power to drive any cable or amplifier. It can even drive headphones directly hooked to its output. It also has unique remote controlled H-Attenuator with 0.5db step built in which takes care of the volume control. The H-Attenuator is made in a way that is absolutely transparent.

This said; as good as a preamp can be, the NWO-2.5 simply does not need it nor does it benefit from it, any preamp.

Regards,
Alex