phono preamp with volume?

Our preamps were designed as stand-alone phono reproducers. The line stage provides that last bit of gain to drive an amplifier to full output, but the big deal is that it is also designed to be able to control the interconnect, which (IMO) is an essential function.

By 'control the interconnect', I mean that when the interconnect is controlled, you will no longer hear differences between cables!

Stanwal, that's exactly my impression of transistors. Both technologies have colorations. Either way the goal is true neutrality. The extremes of tubes are overly lush, the extremes of transistors are overly harsh and dry, yet two preamps that exhibit those characteristics can be put side by side on the bench and be found to have the same bandwidth.

I don't think the truth lies in the middle either, but getting rid of the colorations of either technology will get you a lot, lot closer.

Stanwal, What I hear is that tubes will play the low level detail- room ambiance and the like, the same things that the transistors (in general) seem to miss. So IMO, the tube is not filling the space, the space instead is filled with low level detail.

I have heard equipment with 'fat' images too. That seems to be a purview of both tubes and transistors. It seems to me that a lot depends on the quality of the equipment, although the last time I heard something guilty of that charge it was a German transistor line stage that retailed for $25,000. It was built very well- it just couldn't bring home the bacon.