Critic's Corner

Posted by jamesgarvin (A) on March 24, 2015 at 08:43:22

In Reply to: RE: Grace Designs' m903, m905, and m920 all have analog inputs 1 pr. RCA + 1 pr. XLR posted by John Marks on March 23, 2015 at 11:07:44

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