The SP-5 is a beast.
I have an Audio Research SP-5 and SP-8. I found the SP-5 at a charity auction and decided to keep the best of my 3 preamps (the other one is a Conrad Johnson PV-2), fully expecting it be the SP-8 because it’s tube based and has so many rave reviews. I love tube gear. That said, the SP-5 is the best sounding solid state gear I’ve ever heard, along with Mark Levinson. I’ve heard Pass Labs, Naim, and a whole bunch of solid state interfaces for recording music like Apogee, Focusrite, and Universal Audio and they were all just decent, at best. Naim and SSL were actually pretty good, but the SP-5 is better than both. However, my system is based around a tube DAC and tube power amp, so I can’t speak for how it sounds with a turntable or with a solid state power amp. I assume it would sound bad with a solid state power amp, because nothing would take the edge off. Both the SP-5 and SP-8 are excellent, but it’s hard to choose, in fact I still haven’t decided which one to sell. The SP-8 is a little fuller sounding with a rounder bass tone (the bass seems to be fatter sounding, but with less sustain than the SP-5). The SP-5 is thinner sounding with more clarity, but without being at all harsh, which is the problem of every ESS Sabre based solid state component I’ve heard so far. I might post a recording of the same copyright free song played through both preamps... you can hear the difference.
For a food analogy, I’d say the SP8 is like table sugar, the SP5 is like vanilla sugar, and Conrad Johnson preamps are like brown sugar. It’s very hard to decide which is the best, because they’re all so good, but in slightly different ways. The SP8 just works for everything and it’s impossible to really complain about. The SP5 sounds better for a few hours, but the SP8 probably gets the nod for all day use. The bass in my PV-2 sounds flabby, but the mid-range is magical, and the highs are kind of soft, the least detailed of the three. I’d say technically, it’s the worst sounding of the three, but for some reason it creates an emotional response that makes me feel the happiest (which for some reason brown sugar also does for me).
