The best systems I have ever heard was set up at a local high end shop here in Tampa. It consisted of Revel Gem speakers (no sub), Ayre K-1 pre-amp, Linn cd-12, Linn Klimax amps, Transparent cabling. On another occasion I heard the same set up using Mark Levinson mono-blocks. The sound was magical with both amps.
Revel Gems, which preamp, what next?
I've posted another forum, but my questions really belong here in system matching. My wife and I have just settled on a pair of Revel Ultima Gem Loudspeakers as the first "serious" upgrade to our hifi system. We could use a little help making our next steps! Our living room/listening room is rather large (16' x 40') has 16' cathedral ceilings, lots of glass, and is consequently quite bright. In such a large room, we've set up a "near-field" listening area and found that the Revel Ultima Gems sound great to our ears and do not seem overly picky, when it comes to placement. Now we would like to choose a remote controlled preamp and start thinking about a future amplifier upgrade. Our current amp is a 150 WPC solid state "VSP Labs -- Gold Edition" that sounds quite good. Our preamp is a PS Audio and has a nice phono section. We really want a remote control and have auditioned the Mark Levinson 380S and the Sonic Frontiers "line 3". My question is this. Given the sonic brightness of the room and considering the equipment we have, would a tube preamp like the Sonic Frontiers give us added warmth or are we just as well of with SS, ala the ML 380S? Are there other units you might recommend. Should we upgrade the amplifier as well? With what? Are we headed in the right direction? Any comments, suggestions, or helpful hints, would be very much appreciated! Sincerely, KVolk
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