Tube Preamps...I'm sold

Funny that Tpinson has just revived this thread, since I noticed that the OP has given up on tubes and gone back to the silicon side.
So much for being "sold" on tube preamps, huh Tommy?
Relax, I'm joking. I know how all things audio are in a state of constant flux.

Cheers,
John

hey John! Remember my original post said I was sold on the Einstein The Tube. As you know, I did not want to spend that money so I "settled" on the ARC Ref 3. Perhaps if I had spent the big bucks and got the Einstein, I would still be sold on tubes. As it is, I am very happy with my silicon preamp but one of these days when I go really insane, I will probably try and get back into a tube pre. So like my wife, I reserve the right to change my mind and be fickle!

hehehe....Einstein The Tube intrigued me too, but I found the (18) 6922 tubes to be more of a turn off than the price of the preamp. Can you imagine the re-tubing costs??? Especially if you want to play with NOS Amperex, Siemens, Mullards, Telefunkens, etc!!!!
I mean I once had a tube phono stage that used (8) 6922's, and that cost quite a bit to play the tube-rolling game.....

Cheers,
John

Last Fall I had the opportunity to hear the Einstein line stage in my system compared to the Aesthetix Callisto Sig.. The Einstein with stock tubes was rather 2D and lifeless. It was no match to the Callisto with its set of hand-picked tubes. But after playing with the 6922 tubes (Tele 6DJ8, Philips 7DJ8 and Amperex 7308) on the Einstein's inputs and a Tungsram E80CC in the 12au7 slot, the Einstein's magic came to life. This is a most musical piece.

Time did not allow me to live with the Einstein for awhile and then return back to the Callisto for any kind of comparison. But when the Einstein left and the Callisto returned to operation, I did sense just a little less clarity and not as much extension at the frequency extremes with the Callisto. I just never had the opportunity to confirm this. Both pieces aced in the areas of portrayal of space....a major weakness by so many line stages.

The coolest thing about the Einstein is the ability to use diff tubes for each input. I can see this as a major advantage to optimize each source to the system. And this feature also makes for quick comparisons between input tubes without turning off the Einstein.

As for using so many tubes, for every input that does not have an associated source, you can remove that pair of 6922's. This can reduce the tube count by 6 or 8 for those using only one or two sources.

If the cost of the Einstein was not so high, I would have given it serious consideration. But with the Aria WV full-function preamp coming in at half the cost, $15k-20k line stages are a tough sell for me.