Tubes Asylum: REVIEW: Bottlehead products Foreplay, Anticipation Modifcation C4S Preamplifier (Tube) by RBP

The Foreplay preamp from the (formally known as Electronic tonalities) Bottlehead corporation can be modifyed many times over with forum support from www.bottlehead.com

This is the most Significant modifcation.

This text from the Bottlehead site.

The audiophile equivalent of a drag racer's nitrous bottle. Install these in preamps, input stages, cathode followers, differential circuits, and hear your tube operating in an optimal environment - for tighter bass, higher gain (the full mu of the tube), and greatly improved dynamics.

Well, The proud owner of a Foreplay preamp, I was hesitant...Like 4000 hours of use hesitant to do this modification. The Foreplay sounded darn good, better than any preamp I have had in my system without the mod, and frankly, I did not feel a change would do anything but destroy the lush smooth qualities that I have been enjoying to trade off for another quality that I may not like as much in the end.

Was I ever wrong.

After Building and installation of the C4S system incorporated inside the Foreplay (About 2 hours)and changing a falty connection I made...I fired it up. First thing I noticed was...Wow...Bigger...but had a slight edge on it, and it was leaning a shade to the right channel...enough to notice that the left channel was not fully keeping up with the right in terms of fullness. Then hoping a tube was just not planted in the socket....I found the culpret. One of the RCA clear top tubes (12AU7) was super microphonic....did not notice this before?

Well all us tube guys have many sets of spares, so out comes the other set.

No microphonics to this dead quiet unit.

Next...the acid test...see how it sounds....Now after 4000+ hours of listening dayt in and day out to the Non anticipated foreplay, the first thing I noticed was definition....but at a slight cost.....slightly shrill at times. Well after 1 hour, I left it on for another day.

I go back to it and plop in some music.

No Joke. The slight edge is now gone. The soundstage opened up. The definition and decay is staggering. Layering of sounds amazing.

I give it another day...

Well I cannot believe that this thing performs anywhere near this level. It went from the humble little Foreplay that could to an all out Monster.

Differences:

Sub bass: You know the note is down there...you feel it, and it moves your shirt...wiggles it. We are talking about if the source material has infrasonics, the air will move.

Bass and Lower midrange: More speed, not thick just fast and clear. Bongos' happen now, and their full decay is audible.

Mids: Much faster, with true tone values. They bite out at you, but remain mellow and easy on the ears. Very nice indeed.

Upper mids: Not hot, not laid back. Great balance of this difficult region. Before they were more laid back, did not match the highs as large.
Sound like music...not noise..even in the upper 90dB range.

Highs: Much more definition. Much much more. I actually hear the dynamic differences much better between all percussive high frequency instruments...decays last forever, and the speed is mind boggling.

Hiss: None audible at full volume...even with ears up to the tweeters. Dead silent.

This is a tall order from any preamp at any price. I am sure that their are offerings in the 4 to 8 thousand dollar price range that can boast this level of performance. May be some in the 1500 to 2500 dollar range...I just do not know how another preamp would compare..unless it was here, and I gave it an audition.

I am quite amazed that the C4S mod does what it does.

Designed by the late John (Budda) Camille, a true wizard amongs wizards, this is a testiment to him and I would call this a form of Black art. Preamplifyers no where near this price range does what I am hearing as I write this.

Truly one of the very best values in audio today.

REVIEW: Bottlehead products Foreplay, Anticipation Modifcation C4S Preamplifier (Tube) Review by RBP at Audio Asylum