Who has switched from a PS Audio BHK Preamp to something else?

If your room's acoustics are as good as they can be, then I can understand the itch. If not, then perhaps you've not heard all you can with your present gear? Paul at PS Audio talks about how it's impossible to judge gear unless it's set up in a well-done room.

The ARC Ref 6SE was a big step up from the BHK in my system. Everything is better fleshed out, especially voices, it sounds more real, and detail resolution is improved. The BHK sounds flat in comparison. I was able to improve its performance with Amperex 7308’s. But the BHK is a good preamp, and it bested others I’ve tried from Pass Labs and Rogue.

I moved from the BHK to an Art Audio Conductor when I signed on to be the importer for Art Audio. I am deciding on a new preamp now as I sold the Conductor (sample was 18 months old) and am choosing between the following and expect to get two of these:

Art Audio Conductor
Art Audio DM VPS
AVM PA 5.2
AVM PA 8.3
KR Audio P-135

It helps that I am a dealer and/or importer of all of them as the lower price gives me a safety net in terms of mistakes.   

I only used the stock tubes with the BHK for about 10 minutes. They were awful. I rolled in NOS Tunsgrams and was happy. Tonally, with the Tunsgrams the BHK and Conductor were similar. The Conductor had more presence than the BHK. It had fuller sound across  the entire frequency range though bass was slightly less refined, BHK was definitely tighter. The BHK warmed up much faster and I did find the volume control a little annoying. The Conductor is also a brilliant headphone amp and gain can be customized.

In all cases, I was using single ended amps (Art Audio Carissa, Carver TFM 15-CB). If the amps had XLRs (Rogue Hydra, VTL MB-185s, Art Audio Quartets), they weren’t fully balanced. With a fully balanced power amp, the BHK likely would have been the better option.

In my list above, I am almost certainly going to get a DM VPS more because I need to do a photo shoot and want to get one in to play with at least for a little bit. The AVMs are fully balanced so I am not sure I will get the most out of them but I have the MA 8.3 Mono Blocks here for a bit and they would be incredible together. The KR is one I have been dying to try as I think 45s are an interesting tube to use in a preamp and the reviews are insanely good.

The AVM's look fantastic!!. I swapped the stock tubes with Gold Lions and hear quite an improvement. I'm quite pleased with the Gold Lions