Audio Horizons TP 2.0 Preamplifier

Stltrains,
Regarding the pinging sound on one of your channels, I'm guessing that one of your new Cca tubes is microphonic. The 6922( E88cc) family, particularly NOS vintage ones were notorious for being microphonic. You might consider contacting the person you bought it from to see if he will exchange the bad one for you, unless they are a perfectly matched pair. Then you'll need to exchange with him the matched pair. Before you do that, however, exchange the tubes from left to right to see if the "pinging" sound moves to the other channel. If it does, then you definitely have a bad tube. If the pinging remains in the same channel after reversing the tubes, then you have another issue to problem solve for. I'm glad to hear that you are enjoying your preamp with the new Cca tubes. If the tubes are really NOS, then they should get even better after about 100 hours. Have fun.

Andrewdoan,
I'm sorry that no one has answered your request, so I'm assuming that nobody has had the chance to compare the Rogue with the TP 2.1n. As you know, Audio Horizons offers a trial and money-back guarantee. From a few previous posts there is some confusion as to the adequate time allowed in this trial to fully evaluate the preamp, however, most of the current owners seem to have kept their preamps while making up their minds before the 10 days ended. If you have or can get a Rogue unit for evaluation, I would suggest that you time it to get both the TP 2.1n preamp in at the same time of the Rogue unit and do a fun comparison of both in your system to make up your mind of which you like better. Maybe, someone will still chime in yet to give you their personal opinion of each.

"Over time I have to agree with Sherod, the newer version is weaker in "breath of life". Combined, all these differences make for a very different sounding preamp.

Perhaps burn in will ultimately bring this attribute to the music."

Bill, I heard this "breath of life" phrase in an older review from back in about 1978 of a pair of speakers that were time and phase aligned. Ever since then, I've kept this phrase in my mind as to me it encompasses a lot of things. Actually, that elusive "breath of life" is more important to me than any of the other attributes you mentioned, yet when a component expresses that "breath of life" the other attributes should be there as well, but not always. In a nutshell, "breath of life" means real and palpable to me. If I'm listening to a good piano recording, I expect it to give me a "live" presentation, not a reasonable facsimile of one, no matter how clean and big it sounds on that stage. So far, with my upgraded preamp, the presentation of the soundstage is larger than life, and the sound is all coming from a two-dimensional plane. For example, when I listen to an orchestra that has been well recorded, I want to hear the trumpets coming from the back row, the flutes and clarinets on the front, the percussionists even further back. To me, at this point, the orchestra seems to be all sitting together on the front row. This is difficult to explain, for me.

StlTRains - The other responders are right that NOS can be microphonic, but I had alot more trouble with microphonics with Siemens E188cc's than with my cca's. I own two seperate quads of these. IMO they should not ring even without the use of dampers becuase all dampers that I have tried also dampen the sound.

By floating the board I meant that Joseph for me (to solve microphonics) did not screw down the board that the tubes are plugged into but rather let it float free. The problem herein is that it needs to be tied down for shipping which IMO is not a big problem.

I use balanced outputs to my amp but unbalanced inputs from my DAC, so I have 1/2B type unit. I did notice quite a positive difference using the balanced outputs versus RCA - quieter, more three dimensional, more air. But much of this could also be due to different IC's. I used AH IC's for the balanced and Guerilla Audio silver for the RCA.

Mark - Thanks for your detailed, cogent and honest Ref 3 comparision. While 4X AH price is out of my current league, it is nice to hear anbout a really great product.