Preamp Deal of the Century

Outlier... our friend Twl doesn't like me to say this... :)
After hearing a turntable in my system, I became disgusted with all my previous $10K cd setups...I sold it all.

Then months later, I bumped into someone who turned me on to the Bidat.

Anyhow, sad to say, the Bidat makes me wonder why I bother with a turntable... Its that good. Unfortunately the Bidats are hard to find. Another Meitner product which seems to be more available is the Melior DAC which I have never heard. It too can be modified & taken to another level for $300. You might talk to Audiogon user "Sutts" as he is doing a comparison between it and his Audio Note DAC3 Balanced. He could give you some insight on the Melior.

Has anyone compare the Syrah to an Audio Note M5?

Louisl - I have run my DAC direct into my poweramp for 3 months prior to purchasing my cortese. "No" preamp sounds very good, I am able to hear every note, every detail, the noise floor of the recordings is very apparent because my system is so quite. But this can be a little distracting because everything that is on a recording isn't necessarily music.

With the cortese I still hear every note, every MUSICAL detail, but the noise floor of the recordings isn't in your face although you can still hear it. There are plenty of things the cortese brings to my system that "no" preamp can not. These are palpability, presence, and the emotion of the music. And no, the cortese is not euphonic at all, I wouldn't have it if it was.

Recently I got my Syrah form Basstwo in HK who is now using Kent passive pre into DCS DAC. He told me it's more transparent with Kent, but less musical than with Syrah.
My combo consists of Apogee Stage,Syrah,Mentmore m-200(200w mono tube), Proceed CDP, MSB Gold Link. When adding Syrah, my hifi set sound much better. Nothing complainable. I listened to CAT III, Matisse Fantasy, CJ Pimier 14. Nothing is more impressive than Syrah.

If you run digital into SS direct - and like SS and digital - then you will like it better direct; more detail and you don't mind the ever more heightened incongruency between void space, even void-er, and detail (a bias towards hearing the detailed sound source over percieving the surrounding dimensional space and the two's relationship, i.e "transparent" as to sound projection, desiring it to be in greater relief from ever increasing void space, thereafter defined as a lower background "noise floor"). If you value dimensional spatial charactersistics, the aforementioned relationship to sound projection, etc., and usually, for the same reason are therefore into analog and NOS tubes, then you percieve the hardwired tube pre as the "fulcrum" of the system regarding the evolution of these traits and relationships in the future.

A little more complicated than what Jazzdude said, but same thing in more "objectified" subjective terms.