Tekton Double Impacts

@david_ten, it was certainly my pleasure to share the experience of the past few months.

Unfortunately, the day prior to my post yesterday I had written an even more lengthy and detailed write up, replete with all those audio superlatives, and the characteristics of each of the components I listed. However, upon hitting, "post your response", I received an error message and my effort on the matter was lost. So my post from yesterday was somewhat abbreviated. 

I will tell you, as someone who currently has Pass gear and the XP-20 specifically, that I was underwhelmed from the moment I introduced it to the XA 60.8's. Yes it was detailed and un-coloring, but the imaging was poor, the soundstage seemed compressed...it just did not sound,"musical" to my ears and taste. The moment I was able to to an A-B comparison using Aric's loaned preamp, I knew I was on to something special. The sound was much bigger, expressive, rich yet detailed, there was more space between the instruments..."that sounds live", was my wife's quote. And you know that is what we all strive for.

Aric expects to finish up work on, The Motherlode, as we have appropriately named it, and after I have given it ample time to break in and integrate with my Pass amps and DI's(soon to be the SE's), I will report back. I will share with you some of the features:

• Dual brushed aluminum chasis design separating the power supply and the control stage
  
• A huge toroidal transfer with several large Clarity TC filtering caps in the power supply
• the preamp will have a built in MM stage with two 6SL7 tubes and Jupiter output caps
• the line stage will have its own set of 6SL7 tunes and use two massive Dueland Cast PIO output caps
• TKD pots for both the volume and gain

Again, I am pretty excited to hear for myself, but Aric states that his initial listening was nothing short of mind blowing.

Thanks!

Brian

Iaaduionut, 
From the description of Aric's "Cost no object " preamplifier I do believe that it will provide truly superb sound quality.  Choosing the Duelund CAST PIO as coupling capacitors is an excellent decision,  truly top tier quality. Big power transformer and overbuilt power supply,  another excellent decision. How much line stage section gain will it have? I look forward to your listening impressions. 
Charles 

Brian,
Like you I've had nothing but great experiences dealing with Aric. Your preamp should be amazing. The single chassis 6SN7 linestage he built for me sounds great but yours should take things to a whole new level. Congrats. Please post pics when you can. While I'm very happy with the Audyn True Copper caps he used in my linestage and amp but your Jupiter and Duelund PIO caps should be really special. Enjoy!
Tom

charles1dad's-

When Aric and I were making all the considerations given what is was going to be paired with, this was his written quote, " I checked Pass XA60.8 specs, and we need 26 Db gain (so 6SN7 at 20 db is too weak), and then 50kohms single ended (RCA). The 6SL7 will rock in this position for all 4 tubes."

And truth be told, cost WAS some object. I wanted to do Dueland at every turn but that quickly escalated the overall cost. Aric was great in suggesting where I should not compromise, and where over spending was going to provide little to no ROI.

Tube regulated power supply? A very nice touch if that is being done. Fun stuff.