General Asylum: REVIEW: Space-Tech Laboratory QA-001 Preamplifier (Tube) by kublakhan General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories.

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I bought this little handmade tube preamp as a temporary one until I found the ONE I was looking for, whatever that would ultimately be. The preamp only has one set of input jacks which wasn’t too significant for me since I really was only going to use it for a short time and only with my cd player. It’s a very simple product. It uses two tubes and has only two switches: One ‘on’ switch, one volume control and one little red ‘on’ light. That’s it. You’d think this would sound as sparse as it’s design. WRONG. When I put this into my system I was actually startled. I wasn’t expecting anything; I just was hoping it would play music. Well, I pushed ‘play’ on my SCD-777es (using a redbook) and I was astonished. Immediately I heard detail from a well-known live Coltrane recording and the depth was astonishing. I felt like I could walk right into the room. And this is a $300 preamp!!

I then got a couple audiophiles I had ‘met’ over the internet at Audiogon to head out to Optimal Enchantment (Santa Monica, CA) with me to do a preamp test of the Audio Research LS25, LS25 mkII, Ref-2 mkII because these were the preamps I had really set my mind on. My reviews of all can be found at Audiogon under “May 4th LA audition preamp freakout.” I totally fell in love with the ARC ref-2 mkII but hey, that’s a 10K preamp so it better be love. However, after listening to all the other preamps (all balanced) with arc mono 300 amps we switched over to the ARC200 and plugged in my little Space-Tech Laboratory which isn’t balanced. WOW! This $300 preamp held it’s own with ALL of them and we dropped about 30k off the price of the amps we were listening on. The one comment (the only comment) from the owner of Optimal Enchantment (great guy, by the way) was that it would get fatiguing after a little while. Well, …ok. I’m willing to get a little fatigued after a few hours of listening if I’m going to have an extra $9,700 in my pocket at the end of the day. But do be honest, I’d say this little Space-Tech compared right up there on par with the Audio Research LS25mkI. Not the MKII which had better bass and more depth than the mkI. The Ref2mkII is in a whole different world so we’ll forget about comparisons there for now. Really I would have a very, very hard time justifying spending the extra money for the LS25. This is Space-Tech Laboratory’s entry-level preamp, by the way. They have models that go up to $3,800 I believe and have all the goodies. I’d LOVE to hear one. They have a great upgrade policy which really helps because it’s hard to sell a Space-Tech unless you play if for someone so if you ever want to upgrade you either have to trade yours in for a higher model or drag someone over for a listen.

I had been looking for a phono preamp along the lines of an Audio Research PH3 SE version but not now. I’m all over the Space-Tech phono.

Overall this Space-Tech is very detailed, transparent, full-bodied, nice tight bass with a very high gain. I’m going to try some different tubes to see what that does but I gotta hand it to Albert over at Space-Tech Laboratory (this is a one man shop in Vancouver by the way and all his stuff is made to order with custom chassis and the works) – he’s really working magic over there.

The following is takeng from the website at www.space-tech-lab.com

Model no: QA-001

line stage pre-amplifier

Uses the most common 6SL7 / 6SN7 as the amplification section, give you the most warm and easy feeling with such a low price..
Specification

No. of inputsingle RCA input only
Volume controlYes
Freq response2Hz - 100Khz (-3db)
S/N better than 75 db
Distortionless than 0.5% at 1Vrms output
Gainx8 - x15 depend on tube
Phase180deg inverted
manufacturinghand-wire point to point


Price $299 US (price for standard chassis, shipping not included)
1 year limited warranty, tubes 90 days under normal operation condition

standard chassis : Gold/ Black MDF chassis (optional chassis : Aluminium, Mirror steel, solid-oak )

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Schiit Audio

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