Tube Preamp Reviews

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Art Dudley ListeningTube Preamp ReviewsAudacious Audio
Listening #94
Art Dudley  |  Oct 18, 2010  |  0 comments
If you've followed their story here and elsewhere, you probably know that Tokyo's Shindo Laboratory (footnote 1) has a reputation for defying the two most monolithic of all high-end audio commandments.
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Tube Preamp Reviews
Luxman Classic CL-38u preamplifier
Art Dudley  |  Apr 23, 2015  |  8 comments
If you look at it from a distance and squint a little, Luxman's Classic CL-38u preamplifier ($4200) could almost be mistaken for that most classic of all classic hi-fi products, the Marantz Model 7C control center. The aluminum front panels of both models have, at their centers, a row of four distinctive toggle switches, flanked on each side by four control knobs. Even more noticeable are the stylish wood enclosures—standard on the Luxman, optional on the Marantz—which make both preamps appear ready for duty at the Playboy Mansion, ca 1963, or perhaps an appearance in a Life photo essay titled "At Home with Steve McQueen."
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Solid State Preamp ReviewsTube Preamp Reviews
McIntosh C1000 preamplifier system
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 27, 2006  |  0 comments
Still burning in my bank of childhood memories are misty images of the glowing green lettering on the McIntosh tube preamps and tuners that populated the windows of the audio stores that once lined lower Manhattan's Cortlandt Street. Leonard's and most of those other retailers are long gone—as are most of the audio brands that shared their windows with McIntosh, and that once symbolized the might of American innovation and manufacturing. Even the World Trade Center, the controversial complex that replaced Cortlandt Street's "Radio Row," where the hi-fi industry was born, is tragically gone.
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Solid State Preamp ReviewsTube Preamp Reviews
McIntosh C12000 preamplifier
Sasha Matson  |  Oct 20, 2023  |  17 comments
As I was talking with an audio-retailer friend recently, he reached for a Rolls-Royce metaphor to describe the McIntosh brand. Expensive? Sure, but not as expensive as some boutique high-end products. Fast? Sure, but there are faster things—also bigger things, smaller things, wackier things, and cheaper things.

But when you look at a Rolls or a Bentley, you immediately recognize it for what it is, and you want to sit down in it. And so it is with McIntosh, except you don't want to sit down in it; you want to sit down in front of it, between the speakers of the hi-fi system it occupies.

The C12000 is McIntosh's current flagship preamplifier. It's part of McIntosh's Hybrid Drive series of products that combine tubes and transistors in interesting ways.

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Tube Preamp Reviews
McIntosh C2200 preamplifier
Sam Tellig  |  May 12, 2002  |  0 comments
"It took long enough," as I said to Larry Fish and Roger Stockholm.
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Tube Preamp ReviewsHeadphone Reviews
Melos SHA-1 headphone amplifier
Corey Greenberg  |  Oct 07, 1995  |  First Published: Oct 07, 1992  |  0 comments
"I remember Momma!"
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Tube Preamp ReviewsHeadphone Reviews
Melos SHA-Gold headphone amplifier
Wes Phillips  |  Dec 03, 2006  |  First Published: Jul 03, 1996  |  0 comments
It's hard to know what to call the SHA-Gold. It is a superb headphone amplifier—maybe even the target all future headphone amps need to shoot at—but it's also a full-function preamplifier. At two grand, it's not exactly a unit you'd add to your current system just to get a headphone connection...Wait a minute! What am I saying? I'm sure that there are folks out there who would add this to their existing reference systems as casually as I'd buy the Audio Alchemy headphone amplifier—but they'd be missing out on a great line stage.
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Audacious AudioTube Preamp Reviews
Miyajima Lab Wo-1 preamplifier
Ken Micallef  |  Jul 10, 2023  |  21 comments
A phenomenon formerly unique to Japan, which in recent years has been emulated in cities around the world, is the jazz café (known as jazz kissa in Japan), where salarymen can find respite from their hectic lives, loosen their ties, and enjoy hi-fi jazz over coffee or a drink. Jazz kissaten are typically charming, smaller shops, traditionally furnished and paneled in beautiful wood, which serve superb artisan coffee in artful ceramic cups.

Such respect for artistry, craftsmanship, and attention to detail—the Japanese word is shokunin—is reflected in many aspects of Japanese life. This is where you find double handrails to accommodate people of different heights, intricate, ornately designed manhole covers, and bento lunch boxes with hand-carved vegetable figurines. While upholding strict conformity to societal norms, the Japanese highly value creative individualism. This shokunin mindset underlies their reverence for artisanal expression—and their love for jazz.

Japanese audio, much like jazz kissaten, reflects the shokunin mindset: craftsmanship pursued with both pride and humility.

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Tube Preamp ReviewsAudacious Audio
Musical Fidelity AMS Primo line preamplifier
Michael Fremer  |  May 15, 2010  |  0 comments
Musical Fidelity's Tri-Vista kWP, introduced in 2003, was an impressive, high-tech, "statement" audiophile preamplifier. Its outboard power supply weighed almost 56 lbs—more than most power amplifiers—and its hybrid circuitry included miniature military-grade vacuum tubes. As I said in my review of it in the January 2004 Stereophile, the kWP's chassis and innards were overbuilt, the measured performance impressive, and any sonic signature imposed on the signal was subtle and, essentially, inconsequential.
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Solid State Power Amp ReviewsTube Preamp Reviews
Musical Fidelity kW Hybrid line preamplifier & kW750 power amplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 18, 2005  |  0 comments
Not every audiophile needs an amplifier powerful enough to tax a small town's power grid while simultaneously draining his or her bank account. So, having quickly sold out of its ultra-limited-edition, extravagantly powered and priced combo of kWp preamplifier ($14,995) and kW power amp ($27,995) that I reviewed in January 2004, Musical Fidelity (footnote 1) set about capitalizing on the enthusiastic reviews earned by those giants with less expensive, less powerful, "real-world" replacements.
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Solid State Power Amp ReviewsTube Preamp Reviews
Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista kWP preamplifier & Tri-Vista kW Monobloc power amplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 01, 2004  |  First Published: Jan 01, 2004  |  0 comments
Thoughts of power, domination, and audio road-rage enter one's mind when contemplating Musical Fidelity's SUV-like, limited-edition, 20th-anniversary offerings (footnote 1). (Only 75 sets of kWPs and kWs will be made.) The gleaming, brushed-aluminum, two-box, oversized, overweight Tri-Vista kWP preamp is fortress-like—the "kWP" looks as if chiseled into the faceplate by grimy, sweaty hands. Each of its boxes weighs almost 56 lbs. The unit's milled-aluminum remote control, the size of a Volkswagen Microbus and looking like something Fred Flintstone might wield, must weigh over 5 lbs. The kWP outputs more juice than many power amps: 55V, with 20 amps of peak-peak instantaneous current!
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Tube Preamp Reviews
Musical Fidelity X-10D line-level preamplifier
Sam Tellig, Various  |  Nov 06, 1996  |  0 comments
"Musical Fidelity X-10D" it said on the box. No, this is not bathtub mildew remover or laundry detergent. Actually, it's hard to figure out exactly what it is. The box is little help. Musical Fidelity calls the X-10D "the missing link," a "pure Class A CD-player accessory."
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Tube Preamp ReviewsAudacious Audio
Nagra Jazz line preamplifier
Robert J. Reina  |  Apr 05, 2013  |  First Published: Apr 01, 2013  |  2 comments
Branding can be powerful—a well-developed brand connotes strong images in the consumer's mind. Apple means ergonomics, elegance, ego. Fremer means analog, exuberance, fastidiousness. Rolex means Swiss-made, precision, expensive. Nagra means Swiss-made, precision, expensive.
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Tube Preamp Reviews
Nagra PL-L preamplifier
Kalman Rubinson  |  Nov 24, 2002  |  0 comments
Unpacking and installing a new component is always cause for excitement, even if one does it with almost mechanical regularity, and the anticipation is greater when the component is from a manufacturer of almost mythic reputation. So when John Atkinson asked if I'd like to audition Nagra's new PL-L preamplifier, I feigned calm as I accepted the assignment, even while remembering those years in college radio when I had to schlepp big Ampexes and Maggies. The sexy, portable Nagras were the stuff of dreams. Finally, I thought, I'd get my hands and ears on one.
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Tube Preamp Reviews
Nagra PL-P preamplifier
Jonathan Scull  |  Jan 03, 1998  |  0 comments
One memorable afternoon during HI-FI '97, Kathleen and my pudgy little self were hustling down the crowded corridors of San Francisco's venerable St. Francis Hotel, trying to make the Nagra press event. The Nagra suite was crowded with buzzing journalists, their anticipation palpable—the new Nagra PL-P preamplifier was about to enjoy its official debut. Suddenly the door to the demo room flew open. The vacuum created by the stampeding hordes nearly sucked the hors d'oeuvres off the table.
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