2. amps-preamps
  3. 136421-89400

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

Greetings all.

I’m a mastering engineer. www.magicgardenmastering.com . We use Acoustic Zen balanced cabling, highly modified Cary 211 FE tube amps, Bricasti M1 SE DAs and Joachim Gerhard’s Allegra speakers. TORUS balanced power comes 220 from the street. The room is excellent, and you would love to hear it.

For 15 years the pre amp/router was a Crane Song Avocet. I paid around $1800 for it.

Recently decided to try a couple of audiophile products in the pre amp stage and was shocked and saddened how bad they were. Yes, the studio designed Avocet has a relay click for each 1db step, and yes it has a rack mounted 2U body with a corded remote, but it’s clear folks are really getting taken to the cleaners on pre amps. The older and highly regarded Boulder 1010 (used price $5500), was just terrible, truly terrible. The new and fully broken in BAT vk-43SE (demo price $7500) was much better, but still had a cloudy tone as compared to the class A Avocet. Not sure if that’s the cap or the transformer, but it made everything less clear and more generic, more distant from the music.

That’s all. Happy listening.
128x128brianlucey
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mapman's avatar
mapman
22,159 posts
 
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.
jsm71
141 posts
 

Brian, I happen to agree that preamps have become pretty expensive when the designer chooses to lean on their early successes and brings out new models with new bling on top of overpriced "improvements".  I'm not saying the new models aren't better, but it is an excuse for jacking up the price over time. 

I recently down-priced my preamp to a bargain, the Linear Tube Audio MZ2.  Its David Berning design is a marvel of neutral transparency, big soundstage, and imaging.  It was designed as a premium headphone amp but as a preamp it is amazing, if a bit limited in its features.  It certainly has limited bling factor although I love the look.  Fully optioned (remote, linear power supply, NOS tubes), it goes for < $2,300 but can be had basic for just over $1,200.

It sounds so much better than my prior $4k preamp did.  I love it when you can improve the sound, and drop cost.

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