best preamp ever - cost is no object

Fcrowder states: "The point of this short story is that even the best tubed preamp is probably limping along unless its tube compliment is optimized and a lesser unit with better tubes may sound better. This certainly complicates comparisons, at least, of tubed units."

Well said, Fred, and I agree. By the way, the best 6922 variant that I've tried in my preamp is a 1960 Siemens CCa, grey plate. It bettered by a small, but significant margin, the Siemens 7308( E188CC).

Nice thread. As usual some good technical advice admixed wth some verbal assaults on people's character. Always amusing! My comments will relate to the tennis analogies made earlier. In my youth I was amongst the top 10 tennis players in the world (under 18 years of age), and have played against Andre Agassi, Boris Becker, and Stephan Edberg, and some others that I can't remember. I have seen many of the best play as the heroes of my youth were Borg and McEnroe. It is difficult to compare generations because the equipment is so different today. You cannot be sure that if someone is the best player in the world with a wooden racquet, that he would even be in the top 50 in the world with the modern racquets. The game is that different today. I remember watching a replay of a Borg McEnroe wimbledon final 15 years after it was played, and I couldn't believe how slowly they were hitting the ball! That said my opinion is this. The greatest tennis achievement is by Rod Laver. He won the grand Slam twice, seperated by approximately 9 years. The first time he won it was as an amateur. Then he turned professional and was not eligible to play in those tournaments again (the grand slams were amateur tournaments until the "open era" began in the 70's). As soon as he could play in them again, he won the grand slam again! Who knows how many times he would have won the grand slam had he been eligible all those years. After that you have to give the nod to Federer. If you have seen them all, he does everything as well or better than anyone preceeding him. The caveat, there will always be some questions about his legacy if he never wins the French. He has a more suitable game to do this than most others that have won wimbledon. In my opinion, if you put any previous player gainst him, and give them whatever racquet they want, Federe will beat them all. I will give an honorable mention to Agassi, who played a more difficult style of tennis that Sampras, although Sampras' record is arguably better. Sampras' major count is padded by his dominance on grass.
Thanks for endulging the thoughts of a (relatively) old hacker:-)
I have a Boulder 1012. Has anyone compared the 1010/1012 series to the 2000 series Boulder equipment and have an opinion on the difference?

I've test driven many preamps and so far I like the CAT Ultimate 2 the best.

Just a clarification with respect to my earlier comment. The Einstein has 5 inputs, 2 single ended and 3 balanced. Assuming 2-7308's per input (1 for each channel), that would equal 10-7308's for the $1000 that I quoted or approximately $100/tube, not $500 per tube. I should probably also mention that the same dealer had some very good NOS East German tubes for $19 each. These were significantly better than the stock Electro Harmonix tubes but not the equal of the Siemens 7308's. Whether the improvement was worth the money is a personal decision that will be different for different listeners.

Fcrowder,

Does the Einstein use separate input tubes for each input instead of just switching inputs and running everything through the same amplification path? If so, that would allow someone to customize tube choice for each source component, but it would be a costly design choice for the consumer, particularly if all those tubes are switched on all of the time.