The best preamp without a doubt..in my experience

Stringreen, sure I haven't tried them all. Nobody has, I believe. I guess the sense of my post was that I tried lost of preamps, many of which have a reputation for being up there with the best...and what surprises me with the G88 iss how much better it is. I thought I got close to the best possible with my previous preamplifier, a Shindo Masseto, but the difference I can hear is not subtle. As I said, you feel closer to the performers, and that is ultimately all you can ask from a component. I should have said that I use it with a pair of EAR 509MKII, so yes system matching is certainly an element...still I think I never experienced such a difference from a single piece of equipment. And I used it with three different speakers: A pair of Verity Amadis, a pair of SF Minima, and a pair of stacked quads...same results, same sonic signature.

FJN04, sorry to hear about your horror stories with EAR gear. I owned several EAR pieces and never had a single issue. Hopefully your experience does not mean the company has gotten sloppy. For sure, the absence of customer support is strange for a company like that.

Congrats on your new EAR pre Ggavetti, EAR gear is reputedly very musical sounding. I currently own a Vitus integrated amp, but plan on upgrading to separates at the end of this year, including a Vitus SL-102 pre. I previously owned a tubed Ayon linestage, but am looking forward to seeing what the Vitus can do.

GGavetti-

do you like E.A.R. better than Pass Labs? And yes, the EAR customer service leaves much to be desired. Keep me posted &
Happy Listening!

Jafant, I have had little experience with Pass Labs. I demoed one for a couple of weeks (an INT-30A). I went very close to buying it. So, I liked it a lot--probably one of the best integrated amps out there (it's on par with two other great integrated amps I have: An ASR Emitter I Exclusive, and an EAR 859). At the time I demoed it, I was running it against the combination of a Shindo Masseto and my EAR 509MKII monoblocks. The Shindo/Masseto combination was better to my ears. The G88 is considerably better than the Masseto.

Listen to a nice TVC, which will match in your system. You will be surprised.