World's best Pre-amp for $10K and above?


Looking for the HOLY GRAIL in Audio? Here it is. I'm in my early sixties and retiring to my final system, which I was going to purchase during the past twelve months and decided to put on the brakes, and investigate whats out there as the most advanced engineered high end audio products for the money in the market place. As far as I'm concerned, the two top engineers in the world for the best Amp and Preamp at low prices are Bent Holter with Hegel Audio in Norway and Roger Sanders with Sanders Sound in Colorado. Why? The Hegel P-30 Pre-amp is a game changer, and will easily compete with Pre-amps at $30K and above. The FM Acoustics 268 Preamp that retails for $107K, uses a technology thats called "feedforward" instead of feedback.
Amps and Pre-amps since the early 80's have all used either global feedback, zero feedback or local feedback to filter out noise and lower distortion by sending and filtering the feedback current to filter capacitors or or an extra filter transformer. A small amount of voltage feedback occurs at the output stage in amps and preamps which goes back into the parts and boards causing noise and distortion which smears the quality of the music.The best Preamps in the world all have S/N noise ratios at 125 db's or above. The Hegel P-30 Preamp uses the same feedforward technology as FM Acoustics but is a more current design that Bent Holter calls "Sound Engine" patented technology that eliminates feedback which is why the P-30 Preamp has a S/N ratio of 132 db's, which has never been accomplished in high end audio with a Preamp costing $10K or below. The same applies to Roger Sanders Magtech amplifier which uses a patented linear voltage regulator that controls and regulates voltage with no excess voltage going back into the amp causing heat and distortion problems. The amp puts out 900 watts into 4ohms. Krell makes a pair of mono blocs that also use a similar voltage regulator. The amps are $100K a pair. HERES THE PERFECT SOLID STATE SYSTEM. A Hegel P-30 Preamp. A Sanders Magtech amp, A pair of Aerial Acoustics 7T speakers. The worlds finest SACD player, the Playback Designs MPS-5, designed by Andreas Koch, who invented SACD technology when he worked for Sony. He built the worlds first outboard DAC in 1982 and is legend in digital engineering. The MPS-5 is the most analog sounding player on the market which costs $17K. The Hegel P-30 is only $7500.00 and the Magtech amp is only $5K. The Aerials are $10K. Buy the solid core cables from Morrow Audio. They are low capacitance cables which matches up perfectly with these components. This combination sounds like the very best tube and solid state gear on the market. The whole system will cost about $42K but will sound as good as any system costing $200K. All of these products are game changers. If you want better looking cabinets and faceplates, then blow your money, but you will not get better performance for what this system has to offer. It is the HOLY GRAIL you are searching for and there is no better combination for the total cost of the system.
audiozen
Knghifi,
I said it`s an interesting read and discussion. You`re under no obligation to agree with his perspective.It was suggested for those with "open minds" to other`s ideas and designs.
Regards,
As always this is a dead end discussion. Were all our ears the same and tastes the same, there might be a clearly best preamp. Even then, however, I doubt it. Imagine a "best" wine, car, wife, ice cream, composer, pop star, or pizza.
Audiozen, I can only assume that you did not read the article at the link I posted earlier so here it is again:
http://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/Paradigms_in_Amplifier_Design.php

The top mega-buck solid state amplifiers all have
in common very high damping factor number's. A list of some of those amps..Soulutions 501 and 700 mono-blocs have a damping factor of 10,000. Simaudio Evolution 880-M, damping factor 2000. Simaudio Moon 400M, damping factor 800. Accuphase A-200, damping factor 1000. Parasound JC-1,
damping factor 1,200. Hegel H20, damping factor over 1000.
All class D amps have damping factors at 1000 or greater on average.

None of these are what I would call the top transistor amplifiers and they all sound pretty much the same to me. You may disagree with me, but that does not make what I said any less correct (I tried not to waste my time at MIT Minnesota). There really are speakers out there that need an amplifier with low damping factors and they will sound terrible if you use such amps as you listed. And no speaker known to man needs more than 20:1. Damping factor is mythological.
"Damping factor is mythological"
Atmasphere that may or may not be true(I don`t know) but many amplifier builders sure proudly tout it as a positive attribute.
regards,