Amp/Preamp Asylum: REVIEW: Atma-Sphere MP-3 line stage Preamplifier (Tube) by JackWilliams@webtv.net

Model:	MP-3 line stage
Category:	Preamplifier (Tube)
Suggested Retail Price:	3650.00
Description:	Fully balanced, single chassis all tube preamp
Manufacturer URL:	Atma-Sphere
Model Picture:	View

Review by JackWilliams@webtv.net ( A ) on September 17, 2006 at 14:45:44
IP Address: 71.159.216.10

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for the MP-3 line stage

In the late 1950's and early 1960's as a teenager, I took a summer job at our local appliance store doing deliverys and cleaning up. This was before the advent of Circuit City, Best Buy and high end stereo botigues. Our local store carried just about anything for your home. They had furniture,washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners and of course T.V.'s and radio's. They also had a very special place called the "Back Room". This room contained the flag ships of the stereo industry. There were amps and tuners from Mcintosh, Fisher, Harmon kardon and Marantz. There were big console units from RCA and Sylvania and stereo turntables from Empire. There were these big horn speakers from Klipsch and J.B. Lansing. This was the hay days of tube gear. Everthing was tubes. Nary a transistor in site. I would spend hours of my free time there amazed at the wonderful sound coming from these glowing tube masterpieces. The sound was rich and mezmerizing. This was the sound of the 60's in all it's glory and it was simply magic !! There was only one problem. I was making 75 cents an hour so I could only dream of some day owning such equipment but when you are a kid life was only a dream away from reality. Ah !! I dreamed about owning some of that "Back Room" magic.
Now, let's fast forward. I have graduated from High school, done a tour in the military, gotten married and finished college. I now have a few bucks to capture some of that magic that I had dreamed about as a kid. There is only one problem. Allot of the companys that were around when I was teenager are now gone and tube equipment is few and far between. The vacuum tube has been replaced with "perfect sound forever". The Transistor !! The United States had been invaded by the Japanese. Every where you looked you would see motorcycles, radios,TV's and stereo gear. All were made in Japan !! So---what's a fellow to do ?? Well, I went down to the local drug store and got a copy of Stereophile magazine and did a little reading and looked at the reccomended components section. There in contained the latest reviews and rankings of the stereo market place. I then bought some equipment based on my budget and stereophile rankings.
Man !! I was so excited to finally have some of the magic I had always dreamed about from the "Back Room". The equipment sounded pretty good but the magic was missing ! For the next few years I was never satisfied and I would change the equipment forever looking to capture some of that old sound of the "60's". I must have went through just about every solid state offering around. By this time it's the late 1970's and early 1980's and there are some companys offering tube equipment again. But this equipment was again a little expensive for my budget. I had read an article in either Stereophile or The Absolute Sound about a new hybrid amp made by Counterpoint. It had tube inputs and mosfet outputs. The price was right for me so I bought it. I took it home and set it up with a Klyne solid state preamp and some JBL speakers. I fired it up and I was pleasantly surprised to hear some of that old magic again. But, there was only some of the magic. There was still something missing. I could not put my finger on it but I knew that it wasn't quite right. I lived with that pair until after the mosfets in the Counterpoint continued to burn up. I again looked around and bought a Mccormack DNA-1. The Mccormack amp had more power than the Counterpoint and was a hell of allot more reliable. But it was not as sweet sounding as the Counterpoint, so I still was not satisfied. By this time there was beginning to be more affordable tube gear coming on the market. One month I was reading in Stereophile about a company that was only about a mile away from where I was living. This company was called Audible Illusions. There had been a very good write up in Stereophile and The Absolute Sound about the Modulus 3A. It was an all tube full function preamp. It was rated class A and the price was only $1495. I went down to my local audiophool botique and bought it. It was a very well made preamp and sounded pretty decent. I put some NOS Amprex 7308's in it and hooked it up to my DNA-1 and it sounded pretty good. But it did not have that magic I was looking for. It was not as good as the stuff I had heard back in the 60's but I had a son in college so the money was tight. I still kept up with the latest offerings from the tube companys and six months after my son graduated I started to look around to buy some really good tube stuff.
While doing some research on the internet I came across an article in Soundstage magazine talking about Atma-sphere Music Systems. They were making OTL fully balanced tube amps and preamps. They also had some 60 watt monoblock tube amps that you could buy as a kit and the price was only $2500.00 for the monoblocks. I called the company and talked to the owner a Mr. Ralph Karsten. He told me that if I needed any help in building the amps, all I had to do was call him and he would walk me through it. I placed my order and after the kits arrived, I must say that I must have called him a gillion times until I finally got them built. He was always very helpful and courteous and ever so patient. After a few weeks of building these amps I finally got to the point of hooking them up to my Modulus 3A. The 3A sounded better than my previous solid state preamps but it still did not have that "Back Room" magic that I was looking for. There was also another problem. The 3A was eating those $100.00 Amprex 7308's like they were free. I made numerous calls to the Audible Illusions company and all I ever got was a answering machine. I would leave my number and no one would call me back ! After a few weeks of calling, one day someone finally answered the phone. I was quite surprised because I had been calling them for weeks with no results. Well, I wished that the SOB had not answered the phone. This older guy was so rude and obnoxious that after he told me that there was nothing wrong with the 3A, I sold it the following week and was glad to get rid of the tube guzzling preamp. This is quite a contrast with my experience with Atmasphere. Every time I called Atmasphere either Mr Karsten or his employees would answer the phone on the second or third ring and were always very helpful and patient. Nowadays, when you call companys, all you will get is computer assisted multi-layered voice mail. Not at Atmasphere--you get to talk to a real person that is interested in helping you and satifying your needs. During my conversations with Ralph at Atma-sphere, he had told me that if I liked the M60's I would like the MP-3 even better. So I took him up on it and placed an order for the line stage. After a few weeks the MP3 arrived. Man, was I excited !! I was impressed with the extremely heavy and rugged build qality. I had ordered the all black unit that reminded me of a cross between a Audio Research preamp and some of the pro-audio gear that the bands use at live concerts. It has handles and input switches on the front. There is a big volume knob which is attached to a 23 position Electroswitch with Rhoderstein resistors. It has a very nice firm feel to it. On the back there are balanced XLR outputs and also balanced XLR inputs along with some standard single ended RCA jacks you can use for tape monitors. All of these connectors are of the highest quality. The XLR's are from Neutrik and the RCA jacks are top of the line Cardas. Now---if you are like me and don't have any balanced outputs on your sources just tell Atma-sphere to send along some XLR adapters and you are in business. They work great and if you think that because you are using the adpaters you are going to lose something in the signal---not to worry you don't lose anything. You just will not be able to take advantage of the more noise free balanced line. If your preamp is a long way from your amps the balanced line is very noise free and the MP3 can drive 200 ft of interconnect to an amp with balanced inputs with no problem. You can also use some $2.00 per ft Mogami microphone cable from the amps to the preamp and it will sound just as good as your $100.00 per foot audiophool stuff. Oh--I almost forgot to mention that on the back there is a standard IEC AC connector so you can plug in your favorite high end power cord. I was very impressed with the build quality of the MP3 and Atmashere has what they call the "Twenty Year Rule". What this means is that everything they make will last for at least 20 years. They should know because the company has been in St Paul, Minn building tube amps and preamps for over 20 years. This is quite a record when you consider how many companys have come and gone in just the last 10 years. The MP-3 looks like it will last longer than me.
The MP-3 is an all tube preamp that uses 5 tubes in the line stage. The input tubes are two 12AU7's and the followers are two 6SN7's. There is a 12AT7 in there for something to do for the DC power and I really don't know exactly what it does--except glow in the dark. I forgot to ask Ralph about it but it must be needed for something, I just don't know what it is. Since I have had the MP-3 it has been 100% reliable. This preamp is a tube rollers dream because the MP-3 is so transparent that it will pretty much sound only as good as the tubes you put in it. The tubes that come stock are damn good but if you want to have some fun try my favorite flavors. I like the clear top RCA 12AU7's and the old Amprex made in Holland 12AU7's. I also like the VT231's from Tung Sol and Sylvania to replace the 6SN'7's. Just about anything will be ok for the 12AT7 because it doesn't effect the sound. Now-- a word of caution if you replace the stock tubes. They better be noise free because if you replace the stock tubes with some noisy tubes you are going to hear it. So, when you order tubes be sure to get phono grade tubes and also give them a few days to burn in and settle down before you determine how they are going to sound. There is a wealth of info on Dennis Boyle's website at Chimera Labs about NOS tubes and I encourage everyone to read it.
Before I talk about the MP-3 sound quality, I would like to talk about something that very few reviewers rarely ever mention. This thing is called tone. In my opinion, tone is the very essence of music and song. I really don't have the vocabulary to fully describe what it is. I do know that beautiful tonal quality is the reason that people will spend thousands of dollars on a Steinway piano or hundreds of thousands of dollars on a Strativaris violin. This is the that full rich sound you will hear from a Martin guitar or when you hear someone with a beautiful voice. Tone is the reason that bands will use Marshall and Fender guitar amps. This is where the vacuum tube is the clear winner in passing along this portion of music to the human ear. If a piece of stereo gear can't let you hear the tonal quality of music or song, it just does not sound right and we will know it. I think that this is one of the main reasons I was not satisfied with the sound of the gear that I had been buying and what I was trying to find again since hearing all that tube equipment from the 1960's.
So, what does the MP-3 do for music ? I will get to it shortly. Before I do that I would like to mention that not only am I an avid music fan, I am also an avid movie fan and I use a Sony NS9100es SACD/DVD player to watch movies and I also like the music DVD's. I have a music DVD from Chris Botti. The tittle is--Chris Botti Live with Orchestra and Special Guests. It is a jazz DVD that was recorded for a PBS special. In my opinion it has been well recorded musically and is visually stunning. This recording is great for testing your equipment. It contains just about every musical instrument, both acoustic and electric. It also contains vocals so that you can listen to the midrange.
I hooked up the Mp-3 to my M60's and hit the play button on the DVD player and low and behold, I was being transported back in time. I felt like I was a teenager again. THATS WHAT I HAD BEEN TALKING ABOUT !! There it was, that old "Back Room" magic was back !! The sound of the "60's" was in my room ! Because I am not a professional reviewer I want to quote a guy that is. His name is Ken Micallef and he writes for Soundstage magazine. His words better describe any thing that I can do. He said this about the MP-3 "A certain rightness of tone and presentation along with a big, bold quality made music without any fussiness or explicit focus on certain aspects of the musical spectrom, the soundstage was simply huge and image specificity was a forte". He also said " The Atma-sphere preamplifier conducts music with a bold, generous, daring character. It is a magnanimous performer, with the ability to wrench fine detail from source material and with great attention to purity of tone, clarity and focus. Recording after recording, I was taken with the MP-3's ability to fill the listening room with not only fireworks and bold hues in a technicolor soundstage, But also fine detail". I agree with what Ken has said and of course since he is a professional writer he has said it in manner that I could have never done. Please, don't take my word for what has been said in this review, go to the Atma-sphere website and click on the review section and read what others have said about this great peamp. It is without a doubt one of the all time best preamps ever built. It will transform your solid state amp into a 1960's "Back Room" magic music maker and of course if you want to really go all the way, get a pair of Atma-spheres tube amps. Also, if you like vinyl then you should know that Ralph Karsten will rarely listen to a CD player and Atma-sphere special talents are directed to LP play back. The phono section can be added to the MP-3 for about another $500.00 to $700.00 more. Everything I have read about the phono section has been outstanding.

Product Weakness: None
Product Strengths: Rugged build quality and a full rich tonal quality that is very dynamic and transparent. Incredible customer support.

Associated Equipment for this Review:
Amplifier:	Atma-sphere M60 monoblocks, Mccormack DNA-1, fully updated/modifed Counterpoint SA12
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	Atma-sphere MP-3
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	Sony XA777es, Sony NS9100es
Speakers:	B&W 805's with Paul Speltz Zero's, Velodyne ULD15 sub
Cables/Interconnects:	Mogami Neglex copper, Audio Magic sorcer, Vampire Wire ST2, Home made interconnect using Chimera Labs wire
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	Jazz, Chris Botti Live with Orchestra and Special Guests
Room Size (LxWxH):	17 ft x 10 ft x 26 ft
Room Comments/Treatments:	Sonnex on ceiling and walls, Bass traps in the corners
Time Period/Length of Audition:	over several years
Other (Power Conditioner etc.):	Xentec isolation tranformer with a 10 amp variac
Type of Audition/Review:	Home Audition

Product Weakness:	None
Product Strengths:	Rugged build quality and a full rich tonal quality that is very dynamic and transparent. Incredible customer support.