Best tube preamp ever

There are a lot of folks who have owned very pricey, stratospheric preamps who now own TRL Dudes and say they will never have to look for another preamp again.

I went through over a dozen mid-priced preamps and settled on the Dude and matching Samson amps. Off the carousel in those two departments now.

Best? There is no best. People nominate and "you" vote (elect) with your ears and wallet.

Tube preamp: I nominate Conrad Johnson's top tube preamps as some of the best.

For amps: Depending on the speaker, I'll campaign for Nelson Pass's XA.5 series in solid state. Tube amps? That's a tough one. Lots of good candidates and a lot depends again on the speaker. View the amp/speaker pair as one ticket (President/Vice President? Gotta stay the analogy). Of the brands you mentioned, I like the totl Sonus Fabers.

Other possibilities for a SOTA system: OTL's with the right speaker. SET's with the right speaker. Planars with the right amp.

Remember to have fun.

Amen, to cj...Bill and Lew make great preamps.
MBL, VAC, Gryphon, Tenor, Lamb...all really good pre's too.
Back in the day, my reference was, Premier 3 by CJ...wow.

Larry

There is no definitive "best" of anything. There are way too many variables involved. The "best" you can hope for is to find something that works well in your system. You can then say it's the "best" for you until you find something you think is better !!!!

I own two preamps and one linestage and I cannot really decide which is the "best" among the three, never mind the whole universe of products. Each has its strengths and weaknesses.

The most detailed, dynamic and extended in frequency response is the Emotive Audio Epifania (linestage), the one with the most musically seductive midrange (but with less control in the bass and less extension on top) is a custom built preamp using Western Electric input and output transformers, and easily the least sonically appealing is a Levinson Ref. No. 32 preamp (but I love the convenience features and incredible flexibility).

I have not heard that many other contenders in my own system, but, I've heard many other great systems built around such linestages as the Atmasphere linestage, the Veloce linestage (can be configured as a preamp), the Audionote (uk) M-8 and M-10, the Kondo M-10, Burmester linestage, and a Shindo linestage. I can't say whether any of these are a "contender" because I haven't come close to hearing but a fraction of all linestages, and I am certain that quite a few that were in systems that did not impress me were not at fault. A number of great linestages I've heard were custom-built (essentially one-of-a kind, and not widely available).