In effect I have had two Syrahs. One was an early unit; I believe one of the first three in the U.S. The other was that unit modified by John Tucker of Exemplar Audio. The modification came first because of one channel of the Syrah failing. It would have cost me $350 to have Mick repair it. After repair John talked me into making it parafeed with a active load on the output tube and then into using the 6N1P rather than the 6SN7. The modification has since been done on three other Syrahs. They become more dynamic and much quieter.
I have since bought the full blown Exemplar preamp which includes no phono stage and has a fully SS power supply. It surpasses the modified Syrah. I then got the H-Cat. As I have said before, the H-Cat makes even the best tube preamps sound tube like without sounding SS itself. But the awesome aspect of the H-Cat is sound staging. It recreates an image that must be very much like the actual recording session. There were some early problems with it, but it has performed flawlessly the last six months.
I have since bought the full blown Exemplar preamp which includes no phono stage and has a fully SS power supply. It surpasses the modified Syrah. I then got the H-Cat. As I have said before, the H-Cat makes even the best tube preamps sound tube like without sounding SS itself. But the awesome aspect of the H-Cat is sound staging. It recreates an image that must be very much like the actual recording session. There were some early problems with it, but it has performed flawlessly the last six months.