best preamp ever - cost is no object

As long as audiophiles keep following advice of all these gurus whose disdain for technical performance only brings confusion, the only advancement we'll see is that of ignorance. The ability to drive a long line is only one of many requirements a good preamp should pass. A noise floor below the source's is another. Unlimited slew rate yet another, etc. But the guru says, "This (pre)amp is not musical and has no pace, my foot isn't even tapping...". What is this term? How do you define 'musical'? Is a Sony Walkman unmusical? Audio is already infested by this kind of arbitrary and subjective terms. Problem is, audio is NOT like cooking, or painting, or composing sonatas. Audio is a science (a physics application actually), and therefore is dominated by technical factors.

Cooking, painting and composing have also undeniable technical factors. You will not find a chef ignoring the proportions of ingredients, or a painter not knowing the virtues of brushes and canvases, or a composer ignoring the musical scale or the soloist's physical limits. But technical and objective factors must be subordinated to art, or the outcome will be artificial. Conversely, artistic and subjective factors must not command the design of an audio product, or the result will be... colored and artificial! Even speakers and phono cartridges, which seem to be closer to the art vs. science boundary than purely electronic products, depend heavily on objective parameters, much more than artistic ones.

In conclusion, any thread of this type is interesting, but will never produce a definite answer, simply because everybody has a subjective opinion involving his experience, taste, prejudices and mood. I would not be surprised to find a thousand music lovers claiming their iPOD is the very best audio player in the world, "cost is no object". And they would be right, as far as they are concerned.

Yes, it's a free world, but it's also beginning to sound like anarchy.

Regards,

Jmaldonado, it is a free world (at least part of it), subjective evaluations will always drive buying decisions, and it isn't anarchy, it is capitalism. If you make a better mouse trap, the world will beat a path to your door. I do agree with your opinion that the notion of the "best" preamp will only get personal testimonials, but that is really why Audiogon forums exist.

There is also the idea that in pursuit of the 'best' (IOW the state-of-the-art) that the designer must sort out what it is that allows for foot-tapping *and* good specs!

But then at the same time there is the issue of taste. I found out about 25 years ago a disturbing discovery: If God made a preamp and sold it to humans who did not know the preamp was in fact perfect, some would say it was bright, others would call it dull, bloated, bass shy/boomy etc. IOW some would buy it and others would disdain it.

What is left seems to fall in the realm of 'looking good' and 'not looking bad' in the eyes of our fellow audiophiles, after the equipment has passed muster to our own ears.

IOW all the above is meaningless- in such a world, as a designer or as an audiophile you simply have to play the game all out and do the best you can.

Radio shack Reference standard- it was only made for a short time then discontinued - NOT, there are a handfull that excell in various departments to tough to call champ.
for under 10k the new Dodd Dc powered pre especially since the new power supply runs on all 4 batterys very natural with solid Bottom end, for up to 20 hours ,I just sold my modded Modwright to buy one. 10audio review is out of touch and that was a
early unit that only used 20 available amps now it is 40.

Last weekend, a local tube maven brought a small sample of his wares (2 huge tupperware tubs) to a friend's home. The friend also owns an Einstein preamp. Neither of us has had anything but praise for the Einstein in the last year, but wondered if it could be improved even further by changing out the first stage input tubes and the single 12AU7 with something other than the Electro Harmonic tubes provided. The short answer is dramatically so in each case. Almost every NOS tube substitued made an audible improvement. In some cases, a dramatic improvement. Unfortunately the best 6922 variant proved to be a Siemens 7308 from the mid 1960's and the best 12AU7 was a CBS variant from the same period. Each was very expensive, particularly in the case of the input tubes in which 2 are required for each input, so basically over $1000 worth of tubes. The point of this short story is that even the best tubed preamp is probably limping along unless its tube compliment is optimized and a lesser unit with better tubes may sound better. This certainly complicates comparisons, at least, of tubed units.