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

Brian,

Thanks for sharing your obersations. It’s such a wealth of info from an insider. I would love to know your observations when you’ve heard your music on a truly “high end” home system. How has it differed from your studio sound? Has it sounded “better” (understanding that is such an objective observation). Really, what I’m asking is when you’ve heard it on a system that is “attempting to be the absolute state of the art” (and typically with a huge price tag to go with) what were your thoughts during the experience (compared to what you heard in the studio)?

Kudos playmore

OP, Recently I went on an in depth search to replace my Parasound P 5  preamp(MSRP $1095). Aside from fitting my budget, the 2 main reasons were; it has separate XLR E/O circuitry, and a separate bass control circuit, which I was hoping to control the ridiculously sensitive VCs on my 2 SVS powered subs. Alas, it turned out to be of no help.. I also discovered that piggybacking off my main amps with speaker wire to the subs sounded much cleaner, but does not help with VC.

It seems upgrading from the P5 means jumping up to the $4K range, and if I could find a used Parasound JC 2 it's in the $3K range. The lack of funds headed me back to passive preamps. Decades ago I owned several, including an autoformer, but that was long before I replaced all my rca kit with XLR. You think your thread brought out the uglies, try discussing rca v XLR

Moving on, I found 2 PPs that caught my eye; the Hattor and the Tortuga, who uses LDR instead of resistors. Their XLR version looks to be very high quality with lots of I/Os, and is reasonably priced at $2495 with a 30 day return, but it was out of my budget. Still, worth consideration. The Hattor is also extremely well made: their LR version MSRP is $995. Bingo. It fit my budget, and after 9 days I still love it, though it ruthlessly exposes inferior recordings.

I know nothing about your ICs, but David Salz of WireWorld has been making inroads int the mastering/recording studio market. They too offer a money back

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To everyone here, please take some time to go to OPs site and review the hardware he has, except for his preamp it is VERY high end.  The amps are $20k a pair before mods, the DACs are $10k each, and I would bet the speakers are >>$25k, and all of this is in a designed acoustic space.   The real question is how many really hi-end home systems  can equal his system, and the answer will be very few.  This thread started on the question of cost to value for high end preamps.  It is entirely possible that if his Avocet was placed into a fancy case and marketed in a traditional dealer network, that the price would be 2-3 times higher.  That said, much of what is being recommended is somewhat variations of the same design theme.  Brian, to better what you have may be more an exercise in something different, but not better.  Otherwise, Spectrum with their very fast wide bandwidth design, or the Differential Balanced transformer design of Sonus Veritas would be different but the costs are breathtaking.   Given your talents, a custom unit maybe your only alternative, but if it is not broken why fix it. Otherwise, your assessment of SR and MQA is why I said adios to digital and went back to vinyl, but it has taken 2 years to get it right (for me).  However, you have peaked my interest enough for me to spend my money to buy albums you have engineered. Thank-you.

Nothing is perfect or repeatable in music playback across rooms, time, temperature, pressure, etc. Translation means that something has it’s integrity in ALL playback forums. There is no one perfect playback situation.

 As far as "flat" this and "flat" that I am 100% opposed to such nonsense on 2 basic levels. 1. nothing is truly flat or truly neutral, there are many flavors of vanilla, there is no straight wire with gain, not even in a cable or a capacitor. 2. the goal of music is CONNECTION and ELEVATION of humans, not PERFECTION. We are not doing a science project here.

Thanks Brian.

I know this is not what you came here to talk about and I apologize for helping to keep this thread off topic but I have not seen any other statements that have been more true or important on these boards than what you have stated and I needed to acknowledge that.

The Avocet sounds like an interesting piece. I decided to go looking for one on line and see how its laid out. 

Unfortunately it does not seem to be configured in a way that makes it usable in a home audio environment. 

If there is a more user friendly arrangement I would seriously consider giving one a whirl, as I am in the market for a different pre amp. I just cannot see using that one in my living room. A pity, as it sounds quite promising.