Check out the Aesthetix Calypso. It fits your criteria pretty well.
Climbing the Preamp ladder
Bat vk-3, Manley Shrimp, and am currently using a Bat vk3-ix. you see I like tubes. what is a good step up? not just different. I use a Rogue stereo 90 tube amp with Aerial 8 speakers. I have a musical fidelity m1 transport and a wadia 121 DAC. I would like to stay under $2500.
thanks for everything in advance.
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dpm2340The best preamp would sound like "nothing", like (straight piece of wire), I have yet to hear one that does this, all are coloured in some way and the reason they all sound different. You have that piece of wire at your disposal as Wadia have gone to great lengths to give you this, by going direct. From your Wadia instruction book. "Variable Level Outputs The line-level output stage on the 121 is a new design capable of driving the input section of any amplifier directly; even through extremely long interconnect cables. We call this ability DirectConnect with Digital Volume Control, and it allows the user the benefit of bypassing additional interconnects and analog circuits used of a traditional configuration with separate pre-amplifier. The output stage can be adjusted (via the remote control) to match the overall sensitivity of the installation. Each of the 3 reference voltage settings, 4Vrms, 2Vrms, 1Vrms, will actuate a relay that routes the audio signal through a single high-quality, 0.1% metal film resistor to attenuate the full-scale output. This is in comparison to resistor networks, where the audio signal is routed through different combinations of multiple resistor arrays in order to attenuate the maximum audio output of the circuit. The benefits of utilizing a single resistor in place of a resistor network (traditional volume control) are two-fold: • First, the 0.1% tolerance of a single resistor is much tighter and accurate than the combined tolerances of multiple resistors. • Second, the use of a single resistor avoids the complex signal path required in the implementation of a resistor network, which would direct the delicate audio signal through an additional number of separate components, solder joints, and circuit board traces. Once the optimal output voltage is identified, further volume adjustments are made via a digital volume calculation based on a 32-bit scale. The key to high performance Digital Volume Control is overall system resolution. The Wadia 121 has 64-bit processing and DACCheers George |
dpm2340 OPIf you get in touch with Wadia, they could have a s/h unit they may sell you if not a new one. Or if you ask them they may give you the codes so you can program a universal remote to do the job, it’s all doable. Your Rogue Stereo 90 is 1v in for full output, so you would set the Wadia’s "reference voltage setting" for 1V or 2v if you can't reach the desired volume on quite cd's/albums. BTW: what happened to your remote?? Cheers George |
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