6sn7 and 12sn7 octal preamp for under $5k

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

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. The Melody Valve looks interesting but not sure if I would invest in a Chinese built hi-end preamp, at lease at this point in time. Does anyone have any experience with the Thoress preamp from Germany? I believe it uses 12sn7's in the linestage also.

Will do research on the deHavilland Ultraverve and the Valvet in the meantime.

Blue Circle from Canada made 6sn7 based preamps years ago, not sure how they would hold up these days though.

The Melody 101 is designed in Australia and made in a dedicated factory/craft facility in China. Not only is the parts content world class but it is mostly point-to-point hand wired with exquisite attention to detail and it is finished to premier western standards. Given its parts content it is a bargain at its price materially and sonically. You should have zero reservations about whether to "invest in a Chinese high-end preamp." It's a world class product that when stuffed with NOS 6sn7s and a vintage rectifier, is one of the two or three best linestage preamps I've heard in the last 40 years.

Phil

Mapletree of course made by hand, point-to-point, in Canada.