Dougdeacon raises a very good point on the issue of what ultimately happens when a product goes commercial. The personal service from a privately built design would appeal much to me as well. Establishing a good relationship with such a designer would be a good first step to getting a top performer that would otherwise be way out of reach. And this could be equally true with an engineer skilled in modifying equipment.
There's a lot of commentary here as to one model being "better" than another. But nobody ever seems to describe or quantify the differences, much less as to why it is better. Or is "preferred" a more appropriate term? Come on guys, please tell me what it is about one model that you like over the other.
As an owner of the Io, I am very much aware of its weakness with it not being as extended on the top as well as lacking the ultimate in low-level resolution compared to its competition. But what it does in the context of midrange textures so far is unmatched by others I have auditioned.
If you have not heard the Io fully loaded with Telefunken 12ax7 & 6DJ8 and Mullard EL34, you simply have not heard the Io. Anyone who judges this with the stock Sovtek tubes has no idea the potential of this product. Yes, it can be a bit of a hassle and costly to experiment with various EL34, 6922, 12ax7, etc, tubes here. But if someone is spending $10k or even $20k for a preamp, I would think that a week or two of effort and $1000 in tubes to audition would be small peanuts.
At this point, if I had to return to the Sovtek tubes, I would surely move onto a different model which has all the latest whiz-bang passive components and other advances. But for a fraction of the cost to move up to such a new design, the Io's massive under-the-hood space allows for virtually any passive component to be upgraded.
The Io Signature is $3k more than the standard Io and yet if you look at the parts difference between these two, there really is not a huge difference. Most likely the sonic performance benefits here are what "justify" the significant cost difference. I suspect simply changing ALL the Relcaps to Dynamicaps or V-Caps would take this unit to a whole new level. And this too could easily be done for no more than $1k. Just imagine the insane price in a commercial upgrade....the Io Signature Statement Reference.
For the performance benefits from the two $1k investments I mentioned above, I suspect this done to a standard Io would not only so easily surpass the Io Signature but could easily compete with all the commercialized products that were mentioned above. It might not be "better" as people here say, but it would certainly exceed the performance in some very key areas.
