2. amps-preamps
  3. 1310867274

Can any preamps for $2-3k touch Auregies-L?

I made a mistake and recently sold my Shindo Auregie-L out of frustration while dealing with room issues. Long story short, I've got some treatments in place and a new amplifier (Decware Torii 3) and things are sounding good, but--I suspect my Shindo could bring more to the table.

I prioritize tonal beauty and emotion over absolute linearity and resolution. I also tend to be a sucker for texture, harmonic density and micro/macro dynamics.

I suspect I'd be best off waiting for a Shindo to come up used, but I am open to alternatives.
gopher
mystang
74 posts
 
Gopher

This amp has a lot of tubes to roll .Have you tried this to fine tune the Torii more to suit your room?
This seems like the first step before to trying a Pre.
keithr
1,306 posts
 
Gopher- check out the Mastersound EL34 integrated amp. It's really, really good for the money. Since it's PSET, probably gets you the soundstage you are looking for.
gopher OP
499 posts
 
Keithr,

I'm not interested in changing amps right now. The Torii is excellent and exactly my taste, I just suspect, like most power amps, it can be improved with an excellent preamplifier.

Mystang,

Yessir, I'm no newbie to tubes. I didn't even want to consider pres until I had gotten my core sound down. http://www.decware.com/cgi-bin/yabb22/YaBB.pl?num=1309716798

I'm using Black treasure 6ca7s, RCA 5u4gs, National 7308s and have some NOS OA3s on the way.

The amp is excellent, it was just a more affordable upgrade than planned and my OCD side wants to take it to the next level.
mystang
74 posts
 
Gopher
Thnks for the link it's a great read
gopher OP
499 posts
 
Welp. I played with the auregies l on my torii in a friends rig today and we both seemed to prefer it without the shindo... At least on his gear.

Comparing my torii solo to his tubeguru.hu f2a push pulls, I felt the tg/shindo offered a bit more body and refinement. The torii had more transparency and I think with some tweaking of the bass knob it could have closed the gap.

The big difference in presentation was staging, more specifically soundstage width. My torii did fall behind there but I suspect the right pre could put it in the lead.
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