Music First Audio Passive Magnetic Preamplifiers?

I have had the privilege to work with Masa Tsuda and Hajime Sato at THE SHOW in Las Vegas this year and at last years RMAF. I'll also be working with them at THE SHOW Newport. So I've spent a lot of time with the Concert Fidelity components (and as a side note I use the Silicon Arts Design trio of components).

Most who know me and my preferences know that I dislike active line stages. I've owned my share of them (Cary, Joule, Rowland, TRL) and had a number pass through my system that were loaned to me to audition. My end preference was to go the passive route. I've owned an S&B TX 102 MkI passive built for me by Kevin Carter, I built my own using Slagle autoformers, and I have the Lightspeed attenuator. About the only thing that rivals the purity of a well designed passive is a well designed zero gain active buffered preamp, of which I own The Truth from Ed Schilling at the Horn Shoppe and the Silicon Arts Design which uses some trickle down technology from the CF-080 (including the same volume control).

However, I will say that the CF-080 is really in another league when it comes to active line stages. Of course, it's price should qualify it as such, but we all know price isn't the whole story. The electronic volume control eliminates unnecessary contacts, wipers, and switches from the signal path. The signal path itself is extremely short, such that the board is mounted on the inside back plate of the chassis and tubes are accessed from the rear panel on the preamp. Masa Tsuda is all about simplicity in his designs (the DAC is NOS) and his designs are quite creative (his solid state amps are a good example). This is definitely one active line stage I can live with. I could certainly regurgitate all the superlatives to describe my listening impressions, but suffice it to say I've been tempted and just may have to pull the trigger on one come June.

Exactly Clio09, best active line stage I have listened to to-date :)

Anyone have any experience with the Atma-Sphere MP1 preamp? Just wondering how this compares with other preamps mentioned on this thread. It's output transformerless and has no output coupling capacitor. Triode class A design with outboard power supply, balanced differential design. It's volume control is made of hand assembled resistors. Never heard a bad thing about this preamp so far.

There seems to be some persistent confusion regarding the TRL "Reference" pre-amp (aka GTP-4). No participant in this thread, including myself, has heard it. Paul W. said the last one he made was in the late was in the late 90s. It was a two chassis number where the pre-amp section weighed in at 90 lbs and the power supply weighed 140 lbs. He did make several non-reference but upper level pre-amps from 2000-2, including two multi-channel pres for home theater applications, and another 2-3 that were specifically designed to be used with the Magico 3s. The later entity used the 6080s due to the requirements of the Magico x-overs and were a flawed entity according to Paul. That is what your uncle bought and sold Don.

As for comparisons, the only person who owns an actual Reference TRL pre-amp (circa 1994) has a top dollar system with state of the art conditioning technology in tow. He has compared the GTP-4 to many pre-amps, including the CF-080, Light Speed Attenuator, The Truth, etc. It was a massacre. Everything else "sounded like HiFi." The only pre-amp to better the GTP-4 in his system is the current generation Dude. It smoked it.

The Dude abides.

No disrespect to Agear, but anytime one uses words like "massacre" and "everything else 'sounded like HiFi'" is suspect. What may sound great in one system may not sound so good in another. At least, that's been my experience.