Pre amps cost vs. value ... what I discovered last month.

Hello Brianlucey,
I appreciate your sharing of experiences and perspective from the vantage point of a professional in audio recording. You have made some very interesting observations in regard to the listening experience.

I absolutely agree with your comments about emotional involvement and connecting with the artist and their music. I’ve always believe this is the entire point of listening to music. It is a very subjective and personal interaction and thus by default will vary amongst individual listeners.

I’ve written in this forum on several occasions that the audio components capable of permitting the higher degree of emotional connection and musical enjoyment are the ones to buy and keep. If an audio component or system fails at this task what else matters or can make up for this glaring deficiency? BTW I’ve had the opportunity to hear Boulder components and my overall impression is similar to  yours. It seems the quest for ultra detail retrieval can "potentially" result in an analytical/clinical presentation and lack the vital emotion and soul touching aspect of listening to music.
Charles

@brianlucey; your assessment brings up the age old observation that how a unit measures does not necessarily reveal how it will sound.  The Boulder equipment, same as the Levinson generally measure impressively, but can draw different subjective observations.  Stereophile when it measured the Boulder 2110 concluded - "Boulder's 2110 is the best-measuring preamplifier I have encountered."; however its cost will draw pause.  Yet, the cost effective Benchmark DACs and Amplifiers measure impressively and have both home and "Pro" following.  Your system with the exception of the preamp is very high end, so the value of high end is something you appear to appreciate.  Of course, the industrial design of high end with the sculpted and precision machined cases adds a lot of cost.  Also, high end generally applies a lot of emphasis on input power to accommodate the wide variety of source power - few have the arrangement you have.  Also, the distribution and dealer hands-on adds further cost that "Pro" hardware designed for racks and sold mass-market do not incur; and home equipment is expected to be routinely updated where "Pro" unit may remain stable for many years, so R&D costs can be very different.  So, as spoken above synergy (whole exceeds the sum of its parts) is that elusive item that once achieve, some of us will not touch for fear of its loss; and once disturbed can take months if not years to achieve again.  Some technical items, the Boulder while having PINS 2 hot can change the polarity, and this 'may' be the source of the weak center image; but not everything.  Nelson Pass in a recent Stereophile article has a interesting observation that positive phase 2nd order distortion can widen and deepen the soundstage while negative phase 2nd order distortion can reduce and focus in your face; so synergy with tube amplifiers can be sometimes be a mine field.  Quick review of the Crane Song Avocet manual does not list many technical specifications and quick web search shows a number of positive "Pro" reviews, but no technical measurements.  It would be interesting to see you opinion of the new Crane Song Avocet and whether 15 years later is it voiced the same? and of course in this community we can hear the chorus/mob yelling for blind testing.  At the end, everyone has their own perceptions/desires for how they want their system to sound; this is readily observed with the printed press that understanding they are for profit; but JA from Stereophile who is a recording engineer favors equipment that measures perfectly with speakers that measure flat.  Different strokes, different folks.  However, the cost-to-value item is a bit more complicated - what are the buyers priorities; what is the intended market; how much will the market bear; but to throw them under the bus is bit strong - IMHO.

Thanks to OP for observations. Wonder if he knew what he was wading into and how little his reasonable credentials matter to the religious belief based sub-groups here...
Turns out op amp designs can be great, backed by listening tests, and engineering and testing appraisal. Of course, they can su__ …ahh be less than great: all about implementation and parts.  I took a Denon PRA-1100 and put new caps and higher speed more modern Op Amps in it and sounds really good. Total investment <$75 and some sweat equity. (=fun)

It would be nice to be in a situation to have 2 clearly “better” and “worse” sounding pre-amps in the studio and put them on the bench for the more obvious measurements. Although pre- amps are dealing with smaller signals, at least they do not have the “power draw” issues to deal with.

It is fine by me when a poster indicates something like “I think this is bogus…because” knowing it is obviously one person’s opinion and that is what we are here for, but no need to directly rude to another even if widely divergent opinions.

I happen to believe that if sound differences repeatedly can't pass a double blind test they are likely non existent, and certainly not worth big money chasing, but you know, I could be wrong. 

Home audio done right is uniquely about bling and aesthetics in addition to sound quality and value whereas pro audio done right does not care much about aesthetics. 
No surprise good pro-audio stuff can sound better than even pricey home gear when done right.