2. amps-preamps
  3. 136421-89400

Pre amps cost vs. value ... what I discovered last month.

Greetings all.

I’m a mastering engineer. www.magicgardenmastering.com . We use Acoustic Zen balanced cabling, highly modified Cary 211 FE tube amps, Bricasti M1 SE DAs and Joachim Gerhard’s Allegra speakers. TORUS balanced power comes 220 from the street. The room is excellent, and you would love to hear it.

For 15 years the pre amp/router was a Crane Song Avocet. I paid around $1800 for it.

Recently decided to try a couple of audiophile products in the pre amp stage and was shocked and saddened how bad they were. Yes, the studio designed Avocet has a relay click for each 1db step, and yes it has a rack mounted 2U body with a corded remote, but it’s clear folks are really getting taken to the cleaners on pre amps. The older and highly regarded Boulder 1010 (used price $5500), was just terrible, truly terrible. The new and fully broken in BAT vk-43SE (demo price $7500) was much better, but still had a cloudy tone as compared to the class A Avocet. Not sure if that’s the cap or the transformer, but it made everything less clear and more generic, more distant from the music.

That’s all. Happy listening.
128x128brianlucey
spenrock
24 posts
 
@brianlucey Interesting findings. I've been mildly curious about how pro gear compares. I have no experience with BAT, but the two times I heard all Boulder electronics, it was very disappointing. They have extremely impressive build quality, but they were unequivocally NOT musical IMO. 

As others have suggested, it would be interesting to hear your comparisons to Ayre, Levinson, Pass Labs, etc
spenrock
24 posts
 
One other thought. Perhaps there is poor synergy due to impedance matching or other technical factors when mixing pro and home gear.

brianlucey's avatar
brianlucey OP
163 posts
 
Yes @spenrock poor matching is always possible yet the Boulder sounds to me as it sounds to others I trust who I’ve talked to since. Again, great company, so well done, just not right in any way that I know of. And I’m not saying pro gear across the board is better or worse, not going there ... just talking about these 3 units in the pre amp category only.  Levinson is dry, analytical, well done, just not very engaging.  At this point I'm looking to completely rebuild and upgrade cost no object the crossovers in the speakers (fairly complex) and stay with the old Avocet.
seigen's avatar
seigen
52 posts
 
1. Have you tried driving the amps directly from the Bricasti by using its volume control instead of the Avocet?

2. Have you tried some SS amps on the Allegras?  Their non flat impedance affects the frequency response of your tube amps and they're not an easy load either.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/sonics-joachim-gerhard-allegra-loudspeaker-measurements


charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,250 posts
 
Hello Brianlucey,
I appreciate your sharing of experiences and perspective from the vantage point of a professional in audio recording. You have made some very interesting observations in regard to the listening experience.

I absolutely agree with your comments about emotional involvement and connecting with the artist and their music. I’ve always believe this is the entire point of listening to music. It is a very subjective and personal interaction and thus by default will vary amongst individual listeners.

I’ve written in this forum on several occasions that the audio components capable of permitting the higher degree of emotional connection and musical enjoyment are the ones to buy and keep. If an audio component or system fails at this task what else matters or can make up for this glaring deficiency? BTW I’ve had the opportunity to hear Boulder components and my overall impression is similar to  yours. It seems the quest for ultra detail retrieval can "potentially" result in an analytical/clinical presentation and lack the vital emotion and soul touching aspect of listening to music.
Charles
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