Melody Valve Pure Black 101
Valvet L2
Both are linestages under $5,000 in the US. Both have remote control for volume. Both have the vivid, muscular, refined characteristics of 6sn7 and both benefit greatly from NOS or near-NOS replacement tubes.
The Valvet is fast, bursty, tonally rich and lit up. It's dyamically assertive, balanced throughout the tonal range and stays objective in the extremes.
The Melody 101, bringing to the matchup its amp-heavy transformers, smooth, detailed, rich and quiet. It doesn't have the same bridled racehorse urgency of the Valvet, instead anticipating and accommodating the crescendos in music like swells. With the Valvet you feel speed and pulsing power. With the Melody you feel dreadnought inevitability like an ocean swell you can't push back. Which is not to say that the Valvet sounds fleeting nor that the Melody sounds slow. But their energy is impressed upon you differently.
For over $5k, the Valvet Soulshine is also now an octal preamp.
If you want a phono section in a 6sn7-based preamp I think these days outboard is the best way to get that other than in a Cary preamp that may be complementary to your sytem, but which I regard as sonically a step behind the Valvet and Melody.
Phil
