After reading few good reviews of Doge8, and finding that for $1000 I can have full function preamp in one box Ive made my decision.
I decided to give a shot and I bought 6months old Doge8 on audiogon. The preamp looks very different from my other components that are standard black. Different but very attractive all shiny with polished stainless steel front and ball shaped push buttons. As you mentioned this unit is rather heavy and built very strong what is in ++. Inside I have noticed 8 small tubes on PCB with a lot of long silver color shielded wires and 3 transformers. As you noticed there is 4 X 12AT7 tubes for line stage and 4 X 12AX7 tubes for phono stage. Supplied Chinese tubes were not musical so Ive tried few different NOS tubes that all were good but a little different here and there. For line I have installed 2 Philips + 2 Siemens tubes that are strong as new and for Phono I have 4 Telefunken tubes.
How it sounds in my system? When I play CDs or SACDs on my Sony XA777ES player, sound of line stage I will describe as very pleasant clean, transparent, musical, involving with very nice 2 D stereo imaging but not much of the depth. Lack of depth is something I need to work on in the near future. I do not have expensive speakers or amplifiers. I have old B&W CDM1 satellites and BAT Vk-60 amp, and perhaps it is too much to ask for excellent imaging and deep stage. I do not have first class turntable but rather standard Technicks 1200 MK (I disagree with pricing of better turntables and poor engineering of many of them) and a lot of records. The phono stage sounds also very good on MM with my Grado Platinium and ok but not as good on MC with Denon 103 cartridge. I think that Doge8 preamp is a well build very nice component. I would like to see better designed PCB to eliminate all long cable connections and perhaps tube power supply. MC stage need to be improved and perhaps step up transformers need to replace J-Fet electronics. All together I am a very happy with Doge8 and I will absolutely recommend it.
I will be glad to take any advice for speakers that can improve imaging and depth of presentation.
I decided to give a shot and I bought 6months old Doge8 on audiogon. The preamp looks very different from my other components that are standard black. Different but very attractive all shiny with polished stainless steel front and ball shaped push buttons. As you mentioned this unit is rather heavy and built very strong what is in ++. Inside I have noticed 8 small tubes on PCB with a lot of long silver color shielded wires and 3 transformers. As you noticed there is 4 X 12AT7 tubes for line stage and 4 X 12AX7 tubes for phono stage. Supplied Chinese tubes were not musical so Ive tried few different NOS tubes that all were good but a little different here and there. For line I have installed 2 Philips + 2 Siemens tubes that are strong as new and for Phono I have 4 Telefunken tubes.
How it sounds in my system? When I play CDs or SACDs on my Sony XA777ES player, sound of line stage I will describe as very pleasant clean, transparent, musical, involving with very nice 2 D stereo imaging but not much of the depth. Lack of depth is something I need to work on in the near future. I do not have expensive speakers or amplifiers. I have old B&W CDM1 satellites and BAT Vk-60 amp, and perhaps it is too much to ask for excellent imaging and deep stage. I do not have first class turntable but rather standard Technicks 1200 MK (I disagree with pricing of better turntables and poor engineering of many of them) and a lot of records. The phono stage sounds also very good on MM with my Grado Platinium and ok but not as good on MC with Denon 103 cartridge. I think that Doge8 preamp is a well build very nice component. I would like to see better designed PCB to eliminate all long cable connections and perhaps tube power supply. MC stage need to be improved and perhaps step up transformers need to replace J-Fet electronics. All together I am a very happy with Doge8 and I will absolutely recommend it.
I will be glad to take any advice for speakers that can improve imaging and depth of presentation.