Solid-State Preamps

For testing the SK-5A, I used what has been my reference system for the past six months or so: an Ortofon MC-2000 cartridge (with and without its own step-up transformer), the Well-Tempered Arm, the SOTA Star Sapphire turntable, Sony's 650 and 703 CD player/converter combo, an Audio Research SP-11 preamp, a pair of the mono Threshold SA-1 power amplifiers, and a pair of Sound Lab A-3 full-range electrostatic speakers.—J. Gordon Holt