best preamp ever - cost is no object


Hello there,

I am in the running for a new preamp, cost is no object.
Would appreciate to hear comments from you out there.
Thinking about Lyra Connoisseur 4.2 SE among others.
Poweramp is Tenor 150, speakers are Eidolon diamonds.
Thanks for your help and experience.
aspera
Herman, I am a private member who has been in audio for 40 plus years. Bill Feil is a dealer who has a interest in what people say about products, in particular those which he does not sell. I never did a review of Mr. Kait's tweak, but he did approach me asking that I participate in a test. I agreed, I was told that he was thinking about marketing the tweak. I did not pay to participate as a beta tester. I had paid for earlier tweaks by Mr. Kait and liked some. So you can see that Bill is fast and loose with his charges. If you check he contributes nothing to any discussion, only mocking those who say they like products that he doesn't sell.
Hi Carlos, indeed I've seen a lot of studio-intended tube devices that take advantage of variable saturation and the like. I've also seen a lot of studio equipment in general- while studio gear in general is often built to a higher level physical construction standard (Studor for example), the component quality in the very best studio gear still sucks. I've rebuilt many pieces with nothing more than improved parts quality and gotten serious improvement without any other modification.

So I do not hold to the idea that studio equipment has *anything* over properly built high end audio gear. In fact, high end audio gear routinely shows the flaws inherent in even the state of the art in studio gear. IMO, engineers designing recording gear could take a hint from high end audio: more tubes, more use of superior materials such as wire, better coupling caps, resistors and so on. I'm afraid that the semi-pro market has eroded a lot of the expectations of studio equipment performance (also IMO) but regardless its a fact that the industry could be turning out dramatically better recordings if they could get the same sort of mind set that high end audiophiles have.

The funny thing is that in the old days (50s) they certainly had that mind set, although back in those days component and materials production was in an embryonic state. Somewhere along the way the recording industry lost it, IMO.
Ralph,
There is a "High-End" faction of the pro-audio world there as well; which does use tubes and the highest quality part selections. This faction of products are quiet expensive as you can imagine.

What I meant by studio gear going further than high-end gear is NOT in parts/build quality but in function.

The top mastering houses like Sterling Sound in NYC, Bob Katz's Studio and Ludwig's Gateway Mastering Studios among others do not only make use of these high-end studio gear but high-end audiophile gear as well. If you look at the pictures of my room and the gear in it on my system's page here on Audiogon you'll see that I have also have been able to merge the two factions together with great success.

The realm that I have been exploiting lately includes ambient space recreation and panorama control; my system now incorporates these capabilities along with making use of other mastering techniques.
One thing that is good about the AudioAsylum site is that there can be no thread highjacking. The threads are gone too fast.
Norm,
The original thread was started on 3-14-06, if Aspera has not purchased or at least tried a number of the recommended candidates by now then he's obviously not using his system enough.

To answer the original question:

Passive: Any high quality TVC (Transformer Volume Control). Since the original post asked ever = the ultimate expression of this design the Seamless Interface Electro-Acoustique's Big-Dog (My own design and NO LONGER AVAILABLE....not even for a cold $25K!)

Solid-State: Technik Avant Garde Model One Ultimate version (If you can find one)

Tube: Tempo Electric 1.1 with Dual outboard power supplies or any Authur Loesch design. My favorite is the one based on the awesome 6C45Pi high gain super-tube.

This thread is no longer high-jacked but has been set free to fly again!