This weekend I tried another audition of a very highly regarded tube linestage, retails for $6500.00, to compare to the Bent Audio Tap. Everyone always talks about the "magic" of great tube linestages regarding harmonics, image density, and that " more natural midrange" were most of the music is contained in.
Well, after about six hours of listening, I wanted to put my Tap back in for the following reasons:
1) After over four years of using the Placette Active buffered stage and now the Tap, both are passives, I guess I'm addicted to pure and pristine transparency, total clarity, and just an "easyness" to the flow of the music that either SS or Tube linestages do not offer, at least in my system.
2) The tube linestage offered a very good large soundstage, but was far beyond the Tap regarding "air" between the Players and the individual players did not sound as real as they do on the Tap.
3) Yup, I heard that "magical midrange" on the tube linestage, but the addition of a slight warmth/lushness did not bring me closer to the emotion of the music, but kinda got in the way because it sounded to my ears as an additional coloration not part of the natural timbres of the music.
4) Who ever says that passives just can't do dynamics or give the body to the music that actives can, should just come over and listen to my system. The highly regarded SS linstage was better in this regard then this weekends Tube linestage but both were not as good in the lower end then the Tap and the Tube linestage's PRAT compared to the Tap was missing in action.
It always comes down to personnal taste and system synergy, my hunch is that with my Pass XA-100's adding warmth/musicality this tube linestage addition of a slight touch of "lushness/warmth/romance" took my system to far towards thick "velvet" and was not a good match in my system. If someone had SS amps or speakers that would lean towards bright or forward sonics, I understand way a tube linestage would be just the ticket to give some warmth to their overall system sonics.
Well, after about six hours of listening, I wanted to put my Tap back in for the following reasons:
1) After over four years of using the Placette Active buffered stage and now the Tap, both are passives, I guess I'm addicted to pure and pristine transparency, total clarity, and just an "easyness" to the flow of the music that either SS or Tube linestages do not offer, at least in my system.
2) The tube linestage offered a very good large soundstage, but was far beyond the Tap regarding "air" between the Players and the individual players did not sound as real as they do on the Tap.
3) Yup, I heard that "magical midrange" on the tube linestage, but the addition of a slight warmth/lushness did not bring me closer to the emotion of the music, but kinda got in the way because it sounded to my ears as an additional coloration not part of the natural timbres of the music.
4) Who ever says that passives just can't do dynamics or give the body to the music that actives can, should just come over and listen to my system. The highly regarded SS linstage was better in this regard then this weekends Tube linestage but both were not as good in the lower end then the Tap and the Tube linestage's PRAT compared to the Tap was missing in action.
It always comes down to personnal taste and system synergy, my hunch is that with my Pass XA-100's adding warmth/musicality this tube linestage addition of a slight touch of "lushness/warmth/romance" took my system to far towards thick "velvet" and was not a good match in my system. If someone had SS amps or speakers that would lean towards bright or forward sonics, I understand way a tube linestage would be just the ticket to give some warmth to their overall system sonics.