Tube Preamp Reviews

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Tube Preamp Reviews
VTL TL-5.5 Series II Signature line preamplifier
Robert J. Reina  |  Jun 14, 2013  |  0 comments
As I've lately had the pleasure of reviewing some impressive tubed components, I asked myself why I hadn't ever reviewed anything from VTL Amplifiers. My history with VTL goes back to the 1986 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago (wouldn't it be great if CES returned to that city?), where Vacuum Tube Logic cofounder Luke Manley and his father, the late David Manley, made a big splash with David's preamps and amplifiers. To publicize the fact that amps were designed and made in Britain, the Manleys wore the cheesiest Union Jack T-shirts I'd ever seen—the kind they sell in those cheap tourist traps in Piccadilly Circus. When I recently ribbed Luke about those shirts, he admitted that "They fell apart as soon as we returned home." I told him that I hoped his products were more rugged.
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Tube Preamp ReviewsAudacious Audio
Nagra Jazz line preamplifier
Robert J. Reina  |  Apr 05, 2013  |  First Published: Apr 01, 2013  |  2 comments
Branding can be powerful—a well-developed brand connotes strong images in the consumer's mind. Apple means ergonomics, elegance, ego. Fremer means analog, exuberance, fastidiousness. Rolex means Swiss-made, precision, expensive. Nagra means Swiss-made, precision, expensive.
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Tube Preamp ReviewsAudacious Audio
Audio Research Reference 5 SE line preamplifier
Brian Damkroger  |  Nov 09, 2012  |  6 comments
I've heard a lot of great audio components over the years, but even in that steady stream of excellence, a few have stood out as something special. These are the products that, in their day, set a new standard for performance, and many of them are ones I wish I'd hung on to. Among these products are three preamps from Audio Research: the SP3A, the SP6B, and the SP10 (footnote 1). I know I'm not alone in viewing these models as classics.
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Tube Preamp Reviews
PrimaLuna DiaLogue Three preamplifier
Art Dudley  |  Aug 12, 2011  |  5 comments
At what point does a domestic audio product cease to be an appliance and assume a loftier place in one's home and heart?

We all can agree that a Bose Wave CD player sits at one end of that continuum, a Koetsu Jade Platinum phono cartridge at the other—but what of all the products in between? Scarcity, mode of manufacture, appearance, even sentimentality ("This is just like the one my father used to have!")—each plays a role, but there's no doubt that price tops the list: The more we pay, the more we love (footnote 1).

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Tube Preamp ReviewsAudacious Audio
Ypsilon PST-100 Mk.II line preamplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 22, 2011  |  0 comments
Though essentially a two-man operation based in Athens, Greece, Ypsilon Electronics has been, since 1995, turning ears and eyes throughout the audiophile world with purist, hand-crafted electronics whose sound seems to defy characterization. Even under audio-show conditions in difficult hotel rooms, and often driving unfamiliar loudspeakers, the sound of Ypsilon electronics seems to evaporate in ways that few products manage, leaving behind less residue and more music.
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Art Dudley ListeningTube Preamp ReviewsAudacious Audio
Listening #94
Art Dudley  |  Oct 18, 2010  |  0 comments
If you've followed their story here and elsewhere, you probably know that Tokyo's Shindo Laboratory (footnote 1) has a reputation for defying the two most monolithic of all high-end audio commandments.
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Tube Preamp ReviewsAudacious Audio
Einstein Audio Components The Tube Mk.II preamplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 09, 2010  |  First Published: Oct 18, 2010  |  0 comments

It doesn't take a genius to appreciate the audacity of naming a company after Albert Einstein, the iconic science and math whiz. Clearly, company founder and owner Volker Bohlmeier knew what he was doing—this German brand of boutique electronics has enjoyed worldwide critical and marketplace success since its founding more than 20 years ago.

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Tube Preamp Reviews
NAT Symmetrical line preamplifier
Robert J. Reina  |  Aug 26, 2010  |  0 comments
Sometimes, a product review in Stereophile can breed additional reviews. Shortly after I reviewed the Audio Valve Conductor line stage in the July 2009 issue (Vol.32 No.7), I was contacted by NAT's US distributor, Musical Sounds: "Hey, if you liked the Audio Valve Conductor [$13,995], you'll love the NAT Symmetrical line stage at $8000! Would you like to review it?" Aside from Michael Fremer's review of the battery-powered NAT Signature Phono stage in the July 2007 issue, I was unfamiliar with this Serbian maker of tube electronics. But "Sure," I replied; "why not?"
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Art Dudley ListeningTube Preamp Reviews
Listening #91
Art Dudley  |  Jul 19, 2010  |  1 comments
At our best, audiophiles are the selfless and generous custodians of a thousand small libraries, keeping alive not only music's greatest recorded moments but the art of listening itself. At our worst, we are self-absorbed, superannuated rich kids, locked in an endless turd-hurl over who has the best toys.
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Tube Preamp ReviewsAudacious Audio
Musical Fidelity AMS Primo line preamplifier
Michael Fremer  |  May 15, 2010  |  0 comments
Musical Fidelity's Tri-Vista kWP, introduced in 2003, was an impressive, high-tech, "statement" audiophile preamplifier. Its outboard power supply weighed almost 56 lbs—more than most power amplifiers—and its hybrid circuitry included miniature military-grade vacuum tubes. As I said in my review of it in the January 2004 Stereophile, the kWP's chassis and innards were overbuilt, the measured performance impressive, and any sonic signature imposed on the signal was subtle and, essentially, inconsequential.
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Art Dudley ListeningTube Preamp Reviews
Listening #88 / Tempo Electric Arthur Loesch 1.1 Control Preamplifier
Art Dudley  |  Apr 20, 2010  |  1 comments
I am not in the mood for whirling.—the Beatles, "Revolution 9"
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Tube Preamp Reviews
Convergent Audio Technology SL1 Renaissance preamplifier
Robert Deutsch  |  Nov 30, 2009  |  0 comments
"Are You a Sharpener or a Leveler?" was the title of my "As We See It" in the February 2009 issue. The terms sharpening and leveling come from work in the field of perception by the early Gestalt psychologists, sharpening referring to the exaggeration of perceived differences, leveling to the minimization of those differences.
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Tube Preamp ReviewsAudacious Audio
Audio Valve Conductor preamplifier
Robert J. Reina  |  Jul 25, 2009  |  0 comments
We audio writers have our niches. Mikey loves analog, Artie likes to play with horn speakers and assorted oddball British kit, and I really enjoy reviewing affordable speakers. There's something exciting about hearing the fruits of the labors of a creative designer who's applied his talents to meet a stringent price point and created a speaker that can entice into our hobby the financially challenged music lover.
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Tube Preamp ReviewsBudget Component ReviewsHeadphone Reviews
Vincent Audio KHV-1pre headphone amplifier/preamplifier
Wes Phillips  |  Nov 12, 2008  |  0 comments
You know me. I'm not perzackly an audio slut, but I am easy. When Audio Advisor's Wayne Schuurman called me to pitch the Vincent KHV-1pre tube-transistor headphone amplifier, he pretty much had me at "tube" and "headphone." But I wasn't familiar with Vincent Audio.
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Tube Preamp Reviews
Balanced Audio Technology Rex line preamplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 23, 2008  |  0 comments
If any single link in the audio chain should be free of sonic personality, it's the preamplifier. Though a preamplifier's basic job description is "source selector with volume control," from hi-fi's earliest days preamps have been the designated dashboard: the more dials, switches, and lights, the better. All that control came at the cost of quiet, transparency, and tonal neutrality. Still, the quixotic quest for the mythical "straight wire with gain" continued to lead to minimalist designs, including impractical unbuffered "passive" preamps, in which cable length, thus capacitance, affected frequency response.
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