Thanks! It’s cooking!
For my sanity, I was doing some research to try to understand the significant perceived improvement from the RP-1 to the BHK. I found 4.
1. The RP-1 is a very good entry level pre. The BHK is a very good high end pre. Design, weight, components etc all superior. Obvious but…
2. This ties into #1. The published THD distortion of the RP-1 is <1%. The published THD & IM distortion of the BHK is <.03%, That’s more than 3x the THD distortion for the Rogue and the IM distortion of the Rogue is not even published.
3. Capacitance mismatch. From another audiogoner: “the RP-1 is very sensitive your amp's input impedance. My amp's is around 40Kohm and it sounded lifeless....an obvious loss of high frequency air and detail”. My Warp 1 is 47Kohm, and suffered the same issue.
4. As i stated earlier, my amp is designed to run balanced. The BHK accommodates this.
End result, my ears were not deceiving me! Thanks!