CAT phono versus SP-6A phono

Brad V & I did a “shoot-out” between my CAT SL1 Sig Mk 3 & his ARC SP-6A. Both are tube preamps but the CAT is a 1999 model whereas the SP-6A must be 30 yrs old (made during ARC hay-days of preamps, which I believe was between 1970 & 1980).

The shoot-out was a healthy competition with neither preamp trouncing the other rather each played to its own strong suit of sound. What was remarkable was that the SP-6A held its ground pretty (damn) well despite its age. It must be noted here that Brad V did send his SP-6 to Richard Gray (of Richard gray Power Supply Company) to have the unit brought up to spec. Additionally, Brad has put some brand new EI Elite 12AX7 tubes in the phono section. The circuit & power supply resistors & capacitors are all original. The SP-6A was set to its max. phono stage gain of 60dB. The CAT has a built-in & unchangeable 72dB of gain from phono in to preamp out.

The rest of the system was: Bellavista Sig. ‘table w/ OL Silver 250 & Goldring 1042 MM cart , Symphonic Line RG4 Mk3 power amps, B&W DM604S2 speakers, & TARA Labs speaker cables.

We used an Earl Klugh & Dire Straits LP for the test. What we found was the SP-6A has a sweeter mid-range that was more forgiving & had more bloom. The CAT on the other hand was more accurate in that it did not add any sweetness of its own to the sound & it (therefore) had less bloom. If the music is not recorded “sweetly” then the CAT let us know that. If the opposite of “sweet” could be called “dry” then in comparison the CAT was on the “dry” side. Since the SP-6A was more forgiving in the mids & highs, it had a tendency to roll-off the high freq. extremes. The opposite was true for the CAT – since it was more accurate, the high freq. extension was much better.

The bass on the SP-6A was flubbier than that from the CAT. The CAT had tighter & deeper bass than the SP-6A. It was able to grab the woofer driver by the b---- & command it much better than the SP-6A.

We did run a 3rd experiment where we connected the ‘table to the SP-6A phono stage & took the output from the ARC tape-loop & fed it into the CAT line stage. This seemed to give us the best of both worlds – lush mid-range, high freq. extension & great bass.

So, in conclusion, it came down to “what sort of sound do like?”. Accuracy or musicality. Atleast in these 2 designs if you chose “accuracy” then you unit called the music just like it was recorded – nothing added & nothing subtracted (atleast to both Brad’s & my ears). If you chose “musicality” then the unit added some forgiveness to the music, created a lush midrange & added some mid-range bloom, which probably didn’t exist in the original music/recording. This lushness was not overpowering or artificial but was easy to detect in comparison to the CAT’s sound.

Hopefully Brad V will jump in & add his comments as well.

It’s back to the much talked about choice - accuracy or musicality! Maybe there are preamps out there are both musical & accurate. Does anyone know about such preamps?