Who Offers a Highly Musical Preamp using a 6SN7 tube and a remote?

"Bad Boys" have been expensive for a long time, so I get that. NOS Chrome Domes and GEs aren’t so expensive at all (yet) and sound great."

True. One can find lower cost tubes. As long as one buys from a reputable tube dealer with good test equipment, it helps. Some noisey tubes out there being sold as matched pair NOS too on auctions.

Have you seen what some "good" testing tubes look like on a curve tracer, looking for matched triodes within each tube? My tube sources pass and sell them off as non-matched, non-NOS, lower grade with that disclaimer regardless of brand. Others will say, if it works use it, okay, hope they don’t pay too much for them. Finding good ones that truly test as NOS and balanced triodes on each side of the tube is getting to be harder to find.  Best of luck.

Any UPDATES from anyone here on Agon over the past 2 years...???

-checking for a friend with solid state and tube amps considering a 6SN7 preamp.   

Boutique hand made point-to-point designer-builders too, if you know of them!  

6SN7 / 6SL7 Preamps, by:

• Don Sachs Consulting?
• Aric Audio?
• Cary Audio, SLP**?
• Inspire by Dennis Had?
• Supratek?
• Erhardt Audio?
• VAC?
• Atmasphere?
• Dehavilland?
• Modwright?
• Custom, one-off?
• Others? (add to this list)

Thanks in advance for sharing your story if you have 6SN7 preamp updates?

That is a good heck of a list of 6SN7 preamps where one can be happy with any one of those.

As for me, I am using an Aric Audio preamp(close to the Motherload II build, but not quite) with my Pass XA-25 for at least 18 mos. or more now, and there’s no changing to anything else for me! Can’t compare the Aric to anything else on the list, but it betters any other 12au7 or 6922 based preamp I’ve used in the past. 6sn7s are the real deal for preamps. I can get great music out of the Aric with a whole slew of 6SN7 and 5v regulator tube combinations… many flavors of sonic bliss can be created!!

Micro zotl Linear tube

I have a Supratek Cabernet and love it. One of the advantages of customer built stuff is that you can modify it. Mine has an extra set of balanced outputs and can use either 12sn7 or 6sn7 tubes. That has allowed me to own some of the otherwise out of my budget tubes like the round plate Tungsol and “Bad Boy” Sylvania tubes.