Counterpoint SA-5000 or First Sound Presence Pre

Mike, you should own a SA5000 first then you can speak of reliability. SA5000 is a full function including MM/MC stage. It also use only 2 tubes for line stage.

Thanks for setting this straight Mknowles16 and S23chang. I never had any problems with any of my SA5000 preamps. Even if I did, Michael Elliott is there to repair, no big runaway issue for me, he has a good set of ears and knows good sound.

You tell him S23Chang!

just as heads up reguarding counterpoint/ alta vista.

mike elliott went to both shops in san diego with their new amps for them to audition (fact). i would speculate ( which means "in my opinion" the reason alta vista doesnt sell to dealers is because they cant- they have pissed off alot of people. alot of established dealers that had once carried the line will not carry the line again due to previous experience. no one has to get kicked in the groin twice to find out that it hurts.

Japan and the far east has been the biggest customer for counterpoint ( you can confirm this with mike e). i dont know if this is true for alta vista.

Mike Elliott and his wife are very nice people- i handled their printing at precision litho located in vista before the company closed (its to bad they didnt pay their printing bill - i picked up that up for them. they went through a very rough time. they had a beautiful business / manufacturing facility and had lost everything) (fact)

in regards to reliabilty- i dont know how relaible the new gear is but the old gear is unreliable and has a reputation as such on all their own and not my my opinion.

ask any shop that used to carry their gear. i like their pre's- the sa-5000 is still a great pre (i was considering to pick one up for its phono stage- but opted for audible illusions instead) the gear is to unrelaible and costly to be repaired.

back in the early 90's i started the san diego music society ( we meet at stereo ulimited, bruce is a true gentleman). when Von Schweikert was demoing his Continetial speakers(division of counterpoint) with counterpoint gear- both sa-220's went up in smoke. every audiophile laughed about it, it was considered "typical for counterpoint".

the only shop that carried counterpoint was music by the sea (steve mccormack ala mod squad) till it closed. both stereo unlimited and stereo by design stopped carrying the line due to relaiblilty issues(fact).

my personal opinion is the world is waiting for a relaible hybrid amp and pre-amp that is reasonably priced.

that could combine fets and tubes to bring the best strengths of each forward.

the audio research classic series was the first to do this ( the arc ls-2b, classic 60 etc.). counterpoints gear also did it, they were ahead of their time, but the counerpoint designs were unrelaible. if you have one that works and havent had any problems with it, then i would say you are lucky.

with any high preformance equipment- wether car or audio there is maintaince involved. ask any porsche, bmw, ferrrai owner. the same applies to audio. most tube gear will require service....it is a fact. that is the price you pay for performance ( consider a infiniti to a bmw... both are nice but the infinti will be more relaible while the bmw will offer more performance and require more maintiance - that is the "cost of ownership"

the counterpoint is high performance but requires a more repairs than the arc classic series. that is one of the reasons the arc clsssic still commands top dollar. despite its age, the stuff lasts and sounds good. even by todays standards ( i still like the arc classic 60)

i wish someone could introduce a reliable and reasonably priced hybrid to pick up where the arc classic series and counterpoint left off.

hey audio designers/endgineers.... is anyone up to it ?
or is 2 channel considered a dead market ?

my 2 cents...

best regards,

mike

Hi Mikesinger, it is not cost effective to produce hi end gear when the market is so small. Home theather and internet are part of the new hobbies people enjoy. Spending over $3000 on a preamp is out of question for most of the audiophiles these days. Many folks believe they don't need preamp when they can do just fine by using high output CD player direct into the amp.

I'm pretty sure every company have defective equipments. How many percent is consider normal? It depends. On the average, 5% defective rate is quite normal in the computer industry. As I said before, we have 5 units of SA5000s here among me and my friends and none of them ever gone bad. I agree that the earlier side mount tube socket counterpoint unit has weak chasis, but the SA5000 era was improved with top mount tube sockets. As far I as I known, my friend's Audible illision 3A more trouble than the SA5000. The tubes died quickly in less than 2 years. The unit always very hot with smeared sound and extremely tube sensitive. Not to mentioned the customer service is terrible (confirmed by at least 5 dealers here in NYC.) I don't know about you but I don't think Audible illusion is doing any better job than Counterpoint. I do own both Arc SP-11 MKII and SA5000 and both units were top at their times. Why are Japanese audiophiles think highly of SA5000 sound? It must have its attractive characteristic they recognize that other preamps don't offer. Especially the price you get for an used SA5000 with execellent MM/MC stage, you can probably only get a decent phono stage and you need to spend at least another $2000 for line stage.
If you have not noticed in the past 10 years, all the good audio gears has gone to far east. Please don't tell me that all these folks have no ears and can't tell the difference between good or bad.

You can be as subjective as you want but there are still many Counterpoint SA5000 fans out there that stands by it.

ps I never said First Sound is bad so I don't see why folks need to attack Counterpoint to make themselves feel better about their stuff is far more superior than everything else. Sometimes I questioned if these folks are trying to keep their equipment's resale value higher by bashing other products. This is just my speculation in general and nothing against anyone who post something against the SA5000.