Hovland pre is very good, IMO. Very sweet, but not euphonic midrange. The extreme highs are outstanding. Soundstaging is good to very good. It is quite musical. Dynamics are OK, but nothing to write home about. It is a very neutrally balanced preamp. It is absolutely beautiful to look at, if that is important to you. Now that I've gotten all the good stuff out of the way, I would say that the deep bass reproduction was below average to poor. It was just not there. Of course, there are many people who don't care about that, since you don't hear bass below 40-50hz very often on recordings. And although it is over $5000, it doesn't cost what some of the other top preamps are asking. But for my money, I want to hear the bass. All of it. The CAT will give you all the bass and everything else that the Hovland gives you, plus more, EXCEPT it won't give you the highs like the Hovland, which are the best I have ever heard. Not to say that the CAT has bad highs because that is by no means true. It's just that cymbals, for example, don't have the detail or shimmering decay that you hear with the Hovland. In comparing these two products, other than the highs, the CAT will take you to a new level as far as dynamics, soundstage, midrange presence (although the Hovland is quite present), midrange transparency, musicality and, of course, deep bass reproduction. The Hovland is a very good product and I would have thought of picking one up for a second system I want to build but for the bass extension. I would say in all the ways in which I downgraded the Hovland vs. the CAT other than the bass extension, in the Hovland's favor, it does show itself off well at fairly low volume levels. In order to hear how far the CAT exceeds the Hovland, even forgetting about the bass extension, you will need to turn the CAT up a little. Admittedly, I did not compare these units head-to-head. I did audition the Aesthetix Callisto linestage vs. the Hovland. (I liked the Hovland better). Other equipment was Proceed DVD player, Levinson 30.6 DAC, Levinson 336 amp and Watt Puppy Six speakers. Speaker cable and pre-to-power interconnects were Siltech. XLO cable btw DAC and processor. I am a CAT owner. I have a Pass Aleph 4, Snell C/V speakers and a Philips CD80 CD player in this system. Interconnects are Kimber PBJ btw CD and CAT, and either NBS Signature II or JPS Superconductor (the old one) between CAT and Aleph. Speaker cables are Kimber 4tc. It is not a break-the-bank system, and it is not perfect, but in assessing the CAT's capability vs. the Hovland admittedly heard in another system, but remember that I did have the Aesthetix Callisto as a reference, I feel that the Hovland does come up short, even though if you are looking for something close to the best, it can be considered. This is my best effort, given that I am a CAT owner and may therefore carry some prejudice, to give you the most unbiased opinion I can muster. I do encourage anyone who has an interest in either of these preamps to go out and listen, head-to-head, if possible, for themselves.
