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In Reply to: RE: Looking to S'phile's Rec. Comps. for help choosing preamps to audition/buy? posted by Rick W on March 23, 2015 at 10:20:27
And I know from personal experience with all three that the analog line stages are EXCELLENT.
AFAIK, the 903 is under $1900, the 920 is under $2500, and the 905 is under $3500, and all come with near-SOTA DACs and excellent headphone amplifiers.
So, why a person as seemingly intelligent and apparently talented as yourself needs to spend time one, making up such a list and two, erecting a straw man that is almost setting himself on fire as soon as you press "Send' is a mystery I perhaps don't want revealed to me.
You have proved nothing--about Stereophile, that is.
Bartok wrote some great string quartets, you might want to check them out.
jm
Follow Ups:
In JMs defense, I am using a Grace M920 to drive my Pass Aleph 30 with great success.
John, as much as I luv me some Stereophile, and await like a kid at Christmas for the monthly issue to hit my mailbox, I must commiserate with the OP's dilemma. I think it pretty clear from reviewing not only the bi-annual RC list, but also the review index, that Stereophile reviews very few lower price point pre-amps relative to lower price point amplifiers, including integrated, speakers, turntables, compact disc players and DACS, and before Stephen Mejias' departure, interconnects.Now, if lower price point pre-amps were not available, okay. But say I wanted a full featured pre-amp, one that has more than one single ended input and one balanced input, perhaps instead one with a couple of single ended line inputs, a couple of balanced inputs, with a balance control, perhaps a mono switch, and perhaps a couple of outputs, perhaps a phono board, I am pretty much out of luck for a review from Stereophile. But those beasts are alive and well from the companies I listed above in another response. And while Stereophile reviews other members of some of those companies' lines, Stereophile, for whatever reason, does not spill ink on the lower priced pre-amps.
We can quibble about what constitutes a budget pre-amp, and whether $3k-$6k qualifies as such, but there are a plethora of pre-amps in the 3k-$6k range that Stereophile does not consistently review, much less pre-amps at a lower price point, despite their availability in the marketplace.
And this is even odder to me in light of JA's comments to me over these many years he comes into my home every month that, in his opinion, the pre-amp is the most important audio component because, one, it is the one component through which every signal passes, and two, it is the one component we interface with every time we fire up the system. In other words, the turntable, power amp, disc player, and speakers are the valued friends. But the pre-amp is my wife. Like most audiophiles, I like to have some help from a trusted source before I get married to tell me about her intricacies and quirks.
Edits: 03/24/15
Do you trade for the latest model with "newer " features
Just kidding!
Des
.
Straw man, "making up" a list? Exactly what in my post is not true? Its in black and white in the mag you write for. Do you ever actually look at what's listed?
Since you felt compelled to mention some SS stuff that isn't even listed in the preamp section I'll repeat for your benefit.......*ZERO* tubed pre's below $7,500 on S'phile's Rec. Comp. list, and that one $7,500 pre is line stage only.
Ahh, I've been listening to my Tokyo Qt. set of the 6 Bartok quartets on LP's for around 25 years. Can't wait for you to hip me to Beethoven's quartets.
In John's defense your original title and post doesn't say whether the preamps are tube or SS.
So how is it ok for him to bring up SS products not listed in Preamps but not ok for me to mention that S'phile can't find one single tubed pre under $7,500 to recommend? Whether tubed or ss pre's, the prices I typed in my OP are direct from S'phile.
The stuff Marks mentioned may have an analog section, but those products are dac's, and are listed under Digital Processors. Buy a ss dac for its analog section? No thanks, I already own a digital source I like, and I'm looking for a tubed preamp.
BTW - out of the 16 ss pre's listed, 4 are under $6,000 - 3 of 'em from the same company (Parasound) - one of which is 2.1 channel.
Well, I was only commenting on the fact that your original post didn't mention whether the preamps you listed (only the prices) were SS or tube.
I don't disagree that the prices are pretty silly these days. That said, I have heard some serious improvement as one pays more for a preamp...up to at least the $15K level. Beyond that I am not sure even though I have heard a few that were amazing (Kondo M-77 being a prime example).
I don't know why JM likes to plug this Grace stuff. I haven't heard it but based on it's design I would not expect magic.
I haven't heard an SS preamp yet though that can really go toe-to-toe with a top tube preamp. Not Pass, not darTZeel, not Boulder, not Soulution.
I did not mean to imply fabrication, I was referring to that you spent time extracting that non-probative data.
Why?
I am actually trying to help you.
Because I think that your monomania about Stereophile is unhealthy.
It certainly is painful to watch.
Do I subscribe to a journal published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and then spend my time telling them on a monthly basis how they fail to measure up to my Cosmology, Ecclesiology, and Christology?
That answer would be "No."
There was a magazine called "Sensible Sound." I wonder what happened to it, but I don't wonder "Why?"
I know who my readers are, and what their concerns are, and JA is in charge of the whole schmeer. Constructive criticism we accept; monomania is painful to watch.
I was tactfully suggesting that you break away from this obsession of yours and listen to some music. Glad you have the B6 in your head.
Which is what I am about to do. Listen to music, that is. Most likely Mahler.
If it helps you, just envision Stereophile as a magazine put out by a shall we say "closed society with its own value system" (see above) and ponder the futility of asking it to throw overboard its maps and compasses.
Perhaps the time you spend trying to bait the bears here, would be better spent starting up your own little e-Zine!!! Ferret out all those preamps we have consigned to the Memory Hole!!!
Best of luck!
jm
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