Line Stage Preamps that blew you away $2500 Edition

House sound qualities. If you want this, do not go with a passive design. I want to hear the source (which has it's house sound), and the amplifier(which has it's house sound ). That is enough house sound for me. I need some neutrality in the chain, and preamps always have a sound. This, based on my system specificaly. Enjoy

@ianderson 

I own the Supratek Chardonnay and have for two years.  At the moment they are set up in two different systems in two different house but I had them both together in the same system last year for a month.  To my ears the Supratek has more "meat on the bones" and a better ability to draw you into the music.  At the time the comparison was made they were both outfitted with the same input tubes, early 50's RCA GT's.  Just a more relaxing sound to me which may be attributed to the separate power supply or just a difference in circuit design.  Eventually, by the end of the coming year things will downsize to one system at one house at which time I plan to sell them both and buy a 6SN7 Cabernet.

The last few days my system has sounded amazing. For whatever reason this morning there’s static in the left speaker. These tubes have maybe 20 hours in them. Awesome. I give up on tubes.

@gochurchgo

been looking at used Herron, Hornshoppe, Supratek, Backert. I run subs so 2 sets of outs are a necessity unless there’s another way around that.

There is. You can use an Y or YF rca adapter splitter at each left and right rca outputs if your subs have no speaker wire connectors. Your main speakers suffer no degradation in sound because of their direct speaker wire connection to your amplifier.

There is some loss in gain in your subwoofer if it has only rca connectors but since most subs are set at 2 or 3 gain anyway turning it up is not a problem at all.

In fact, The Truth has an uncanny ability to reproduce the bass to where you actually hear the sound of the instrument playing the bass itself instead of the sound of sub cabinet itself and the subwoofer, playing the bass.

It’s hard to explain until you here it. It’s an after effect of the sublime, spooky quietness of The Truth preamp. Owners of The Truth preamp know what I’m talking about.

At a little over $1000 because of inflation it’s a steal. And I actually like the black Retro/Deco look with the nondescript black simple Bakelite looking knobs. It matches my Clayton M-200 custom stereo amplifier perfectly.

No need to buy used. For a little over $1000 buy new and have Ed Schilling custom spec it for you.

@gochurchgo 

Tubes can be fussy for sure..  Try to wiggle the tubes up, then reseat them. I have found that the tube pins and the socket contacts sometimes need a good rub to get them noise free..  Its all part of their mystique..