Wyetech Labs Ruby Std preamp - any views?

Spirit,
Pavpet has owned both, so I imagine he found the"relative" difference to be rather substantial between the Wyetech and Hovland. Certainly this doesn't mean your findings or impression would be similar.

Regarding Wyetech's pedigree, I was acknowledging their track record of success for truly musical SOTA sound. Hovland could be equally deserving but I'm not as familiar with them.
Charles,

FYI, Hovland has been out of business for years. Not syre what happened, because they made very HQ products that also were gorgeous to look at.

Neal

Hovland Company was done in by a combination of low cash reserves and the extremely high cost of manufacturing its hand-built products.

See the link below for the full story.

http://www.stereophile.com/content/hovland-calls-it-quits

Don't I know it. 8 years on since I bought my Hovland HP200 tube pre and Radia SS power amp, it still rankles with me that this fantastic company, with brilliantly engineered products, and a design aesthetic years ahead of the competition, went to the wall.
I won't let you on fully to the details of which I know plenty, but the pressure for disproportionately higher markups of European distributors wrt US ones really did it for the company.
Once you have to keep raising prices to satisfy middlemen margins, your market will shrink. And magnified by the hugher prices needing to be charged to produce the high quality of their hand built products.
No wonder Wyetech labs go for direct sales model.
Eight years on, I haven't found a pre to displace the HP200 (the Ruby Std may be v.interesting), and my Radia is still in use, as my rear spkrs AV duty, while SET monoblocks have taken over music duties.
What I'm even more amazed by is that Hovland seem to be one of the few, if maybe only, high end companies with a 5 star reputation, that went to the wall. If Hovland died, how come eg BAT, Ayre etc managed to survive?

Best sounding products and best managed businesses don't always go hand in hand unfortunately.