I will chime in with the other devotees for Don Sachs' preamp. I got the third or forth one he built which was recently sent back to him for the latest, and likely final, upgrades. It is beyond question the finest preamp I have ever had in my system and that included oodles of SS and tube preamps. It is simply the most revealing and luminous preamp I have ever had. In terms of performance vs. cost, Don's preamp is fantastic.
Forget about balanced outputs. If they were meaningful, Don would design his preamp for them, but he feels RCA outputs are perfectly fine. By the way, I bought his KT88-based amp a few months ago and it is absolutely breathtaking in its ability to present a holographic soundstage, yet with excellent extension in both the LF and HF... the mid-range of course is also wonderful. I bet Don against it when I contemplated the purchase of it, arguing the my Platinum-upgraded McCormack DNA .05 SS amp would have much more LF control, but when I had a chance to audition Don's amp to the McCormack amp, it took all of 30 seconds to realize the excellence of the Don's amp in comparison. Tonally, both are excellent, but Don's amp presents the 3-D soundstage whereas the McCormack sounds decided 2-D. Their is magic in tube and the place to start with with the preamp!
I have known Don for nearly 12 years. He upgraded my HK C-1, C-2 and C-V, but decided he would significantly improve upon their performance. He has clearly succeed. Yes, he could have used the TOTL Dueland caps in his preamp and added $1000 to cost of the preamp, but he tirelessly researched the market and discovered, to his ears, even better Polish caps for a 1/5th the price.
Don truly hit the mark in terms of price vs performance and you would be well advised to acquire one of this preamps. I am pretty sure that you could spend 3-4X times the price of his preamp and not be more satisfied with the sound. Cheers, Whitestix
Forget about balanced outputs. If they were meaningful, Don would design his preamp for them, but he feels RCA outputs are perfectly fine. By the way, I bought his KT88-based amp a few months ago and it is absolutely breathtaking in its ability to present a holographic soundstage, yet with excellent extension in both the LF and HF... the mid-range of course is also wonderful. I bet Don against it when I contemplated the purchase of it, arguing the my Platinum-upgraded McCormack DNA .05 SS amp would have much more LF control, but when I had a chance to audition Don's amp to the McCormack amp, it took all of 30 seconds to realize the excellence of the Don's amp in comparison. Tonally, both are excellent, but Don's amp presents the 3-D soundstage whereas the McCormack sounds decided 2-D. Their is magic in tube and the place to start with with the preamp!
I have known Don for nearly 12 years. He upgraded my HK C-1, C-2 and C-V, but decided he would significantly improve upon their performance. He has clearly succeed. Yes, he could have used the TOTL Dueland caps in his preamp and added $1000 to cost of the preamp, but he tirelessly researched the market and discovered, to his ears, even better Polish caps for a 1/5th the price.
Don truly hit the mark in terms of price vs performance and you would be well advised to acquire one of this preamps. I am pretty sure that you could spend 3-4X times the price of his preamp and not be more satisfied with the sound. Cheers, Whitestix