Maybe tube preamp

PS - wish I’d added this to my earlier post.

I am NOT saying there is anything wrong with Freya’s sound using quiet 6SN7 tubes (new production TungSols seem popular on HeadFi). Just that, for me, if I don’t need the gain that tubes provide, I am very happy with the sound when running it in JFET buffer mode. Other than the gain, I’ve not yet heard a huge sonic advantage using tubes. Small differences, yes, maybe. Again, that’s with the tubes I’ve tried. I also want to stress folks over on HeadFi are reporting much bigger changes going to tubes from passive mode and seem to strongly prefer tube mode.  Okay...done now.

My Freya shipped today so I won't have to wait long to see what's what. If it doesn't sound great it simply gets sent back. My experience with 6SN7s is mainly from that last several months of owning a "Fire Bottle" single ended amp that came with an Amperex USA 6SN7GTB (and sounds great)…the amp has only 4 tubes including the rectifier so it begs for tube experimentation. I bought another Amperex as a backup since I like the original one so much, and have a pair of Tung Sols (recent version) ready for the Freya since I had one already and bought another identical one…same test scores (!). The Amperex sounds better than the Tung Sol in my amp but not by too much. Both are very quiet and non microphonic. I can’t really say what the differences between 12AX7s and the 6SN7s might be as I haven’t had an amp that could swap ’em out…I had a pile of 12AX7s for my previous amp, a Jolida 502P, and recent version Gold Lions sounded best to me for that amp. I’ve also used 12AX7s in guitar amps since the 60s so there’s that…but guitar amps may be more forgiving anyway. It is interesting that the Schiit dudes love that 6SN7 tube so much, and the "octal" base is way more confidence inspiring when taking the tubes in and out of an amp than the easily bendable wires of a 12AX7…points just for that. I’d like to get a pair of 5692 "red base" (that's supposedly important) tubes just to check ’em out either in the Freya or the Fire Bottle as they seem interesting…pricey but cool.

The Inspire preamps aren’t remote controlled, and cost about twice as much as a Freya…I have heard of a remote version somebody talked Had into building recently so maybe in the future I’ll get one, but one thing about Inspire stuff is the utter randomness of Had’s builds and the "contact over Ebay" thing. It’s sort of like a club you join, and that’s OK. The Freya’s balanced design (my DAC has balanced outs), a hip volume control (so they say), and 3 operating modes appeal to me also, although my amp is single ended. I may change my mind and bug Had if the Freya doesn’t deliver the mojo I seem to want it to…next week it arrives so we shall see.