I briefly owned an SA5000 recently and it was by far the quietest preamp I have ever owned. Have not heard the melos for more than 13 years so I cant really give an opinion.
The line stage mosfet followers in the SA5000 can be bypassed (jumpers on the board) to make it like an SA5.1. The phono's JFETs cannot be bypassed.
You might need to measure the values of the anode and cathode resistors to make sure the L channel matches the right otherwise the 6922s are hard to bias evenly (trimpots on the board make it very convenient)
Make sure the unit u are getting has a manual, comes in handy.
Also dont even think of doing any mods without sending it to Michael Elliott, I think he is the only one who knows how to take the suspended audio PCB out from the chassis.
The line stage mosfet followers in the SA5000 can be bypassed (jumpers on the board) to make it like an SA5.1. The phono's JFETs cannot be bypassed.
You might need to measure the values of the anode and cathode resistors to make sure the L channel matches the right otherwise the 6922s are hard to bias evenly (trimpots on the board make it very convenient)
Make sure the unit u are getting has a manual, comes in handy.
Also dont even think of doing any mods without sending it to Michael Elliott, I think he is the only one who knows how to take the suspended audio PCB out from the chassis.