General Asylum: REVIEW: Golden Tube Audio SEP1 Special Edition Preamplifier (Tube) by Chris Garrett

Hello,

Well, after building a nice mass market HT system, I began to look at
my 14 year Hafler Kits and the DH110 preamp was the first to go. I
found a demoed SEP1 SE at my local dealer for $700 and adding an
additional 'C' note got me a new battery operated Phono Board, so for
$852 out the door, the 'disease' had taken root.

I'm not the auditioning type and I bought this unit on a whim, so
take these comments with a grain of salt.

I remember walking into the shop and thinking oh boy!, tubes. When
Don brought out the unit from the back room to show me, I was like...
where are the tubes?. I was picturing the thing looking like a tube
amp. Anyhow, I brought it home, installed the Phono Card and hooked
it up to the DH220 via a pair of KCAGs.

I plopped Sade's Ordinary Love into my Denon DCD920 and hit play.
Within the first few notes, I knew this was a different animal. The
bass was much more profound and detailed, no boom, boom, boom, but
actual notes could be heard throughout the bass line. The grating
highs of the Denon were smoothed over and her voice was distinct,
clear and believable. I listened for hours.

This unit has many jumper settings internally and the phono board has
even more, but I have yet to play with any of them. The back has
gold plated and sturdy RCAs along with Balanced OUTs. There is also
a secondary set of phase inverted RCA outs. I question GT not putting
Balanced INPUTs on their SE40 amps, when they included them on the
companion piece preamp. Oh well.

The faceplate is 5/16" Gold anodized metal and it has 5 matching
machined knobs, with a lime green LED over the center knob for visual
on/off detection. There is a "Fine" balance knob which is disabled
at the factory, a Record Input Knob, Volume, Source Input and an 'Off, Standby, On, Mute' knob for bringing the unit to life. Inside is one Sovtek 6922.

The fit and finish is quite nice and this unit weighs over thiry, and
close to forty pounds. I'm not one to become disillusioned with a
piece unless is fails to work properly, so I'd imagine that it'll be
around for some time to come. I do have some Amperex PQ Pinched Waist
6922s and Siemens SQ 7308s coming for the Ah! Tjoeb '99, so I'll throw
these in and see what I can hear.

GT has a reputation for good sound quality for what little money is
spent and I cannot disagree. This is their entry level unit and
not the end all, be all for preamps; however, it possesses an elegant look, is built to last, and sounds great to my ears.

Chris

REVIEW: Golden Tube Audio SEP1 Special Edition Preamplifier (Tube) Review by Chris Garrett at Audio Asylum