Audio Horizons TP 2.0 Preamplifier

Hi guys. I don't know if eveyone remembers but about a week ago, I replaced Joseph's upgraded Hovland output caps with the V-cap OIMP caps and after 150 hours of break-in my jaw is still on the floor. I will post a little mini-review when they reach their 300 hour or so final break-in. I can, in the meantime, confidently state, IMHO, that after 96 hours, the V-caps handily surpassed the Hovland by many orders of magnitude. I have e-mailed Victor to order a pair for he and Joseph's evaluation, so when and if this happens, you might want to get some more opinions, but at this juncture, I feel that Chris Ven Haus has developed a revelatory cap that turns Joseph's already amazing bang-for-your-buck preamp into a truly world class preamp of immense musicality. I am drawn now into the music more than ever before and am hearing things that surpass what any tweak or component that I've ever added to my system. I am truly amazed at the differences. Stay tuned for a final update in about a week or so.

Regarding "Joe's Tube Lore", this is one man's opinion, of tubes in his system, in one component(his dac, I believe), so take his recommendations as a " your mileage might vary" standpoint. Here's hoping that you'll all find the one tube that sounds best in your preamp.

Way to go Sherod.

Count me in on this one.

What scares me is what other audiophiles considering trying Joseph's preamp are thinking about all these tweaks the current users are doing to the preamp. I would probably be asking, " If Joseph's preamp is a world beater in stock form, why in the world would you do anything to try to improve on it?" Well, the only tweaks I have done to mine and both were approved by Joseph, are to upgrade the two main tubes and now the experimenting with the V-caps in the outputs. My answer to this is that both are reasonable tweaks that any audiophile worth his salt would consider doing if it meant extracting that last nth-degree of subtle nuances from an already amazing preamp. No Trolls wanted on this thread.

To me the tube changes are to fine-tune the preamp to one's musical preference, room, and equipment. I could be very very happy with the preamp with the stock EH or Siemens provided, but it is fun to see what other sounds can be experienced.