Balanced Tube Preamps I Should Try

I'll second the Sonic Frontier Line 3 in "regular" or "Special Edition". Excellent preamp, fully balanced, great remote, HT throughput (if that's important to you), and very well made. Retail from $5k + , used Agon from $2.5k + .

There is a VAC Renaissance for sale right now. It is a true differential balanced input and output. Each input is selectable for single ended or balanced with a toggle switch. The balanced inputs can be utilized even if the source is not a true balanced output. The remote control has volume, mute, and source utilizing motorized switches. If you are tired of hiss and hum and want dead quiet this preamp is for you. The build quality is outstanding plus it's a very eye catching piece. Check the review in Stereophile of the Signature version as I feel it applies equally to the standard version. When I purchased mine, I was expecting maybe something like a 20% improvement over my previous Audio Research preamp but I got like 100% better. This is an outstanding preamp.

You might want to consider the new Aesthetix Calypso which has both balanced & unbalanced (RCA) inputs and outputs. It should be on the market very soon if not available now. It comes with a remote control and is CDN $6,500 which should equate to around US$4,750 or there abouts.

EAR 864 also offers balanced & unbalanced inputs and outputs in addition to the ones mentioned above (Atma-Sphere, Audio Research, BAT.

Regards,
Kevin

Bigkidz, if your still using the pass x pre, may I ask what your goals are by changing to tubes? Perhaps this is unnecessary, but please remember the somewhat low impedance load of the Pass amp when considering some tube pre's that may have higher ouput impedances, the SF is unuusally low for a tube pre in that regard.

Unsound,

I am looking to change the midrange to sound more alive. I have been using a pair of Talon Raven-C speakers and they seem to be too revealing with the Pass preamp, maybe too much of a good thing.