Morrison Elad, Some opinions Please.

One final comment:

I have heard the Citation 5.0 preamp. It was a good HT preamp before Dolby Digital hit the market.

I would never consider the Cititation 5.0 a great (or even good) 2 channel preamp. The Morrison will be a major improvement in 2 channel over the Citation.

I also have had a Sim Moon W-5 amp. This is a great amplifier. It will do well with the Morrison.

Selling the Citation 5.0 may be a serious problem for you. I would consider donating the piece, and try writing off as much as possible. The piece new was way overpriced. I have seen folks try to give this sort of piece away. It's not easy because it did not have AC-3.

Peace.

Keith

Kelly,

As a middle aged (Boy, I hate to admit that) dentist in Florida, I have no reason to "shill" for Morrison-a one man operation in Toronto, Canada. I have never met the man. I simply am a satisfied customer who has owned the Elad for about 2 years.

I was just thinking about my ELAD..I've owned it for about 14 years. I did a search hear and found this thread and just felt compelled to resurrect it. 
I recall that at the time I bought it, I needed a pre and didn't have a lot of money. Somehow I heard about Don Morrison and the ELAD pre. I read all of the reviews on audioreview.com, then all of the negative backlash, and finally decided to gamble $700.00 and order one. It came beautifully packed with some paperwork and a couple of recipes from Don. (he's quirky)
I loved it right away. I couldn't pin any particular label on it. It didn't sound tubey or transistory. It was smooth and pretty dynamic,certainly quiet, and after all of these years of being left on constantly when I wasn't using another pre, I've never had any problems with it. Even though I was very satisfied with it, I always assumed (and still do) that there were much better sounding preamps out there, so when I had a little money I went looking. First, a Joule Electra LA 100. Very disappointing. Less dynamic, smaller stage, and not as tall. Kind of dull really; and yes, I put in all premium tubes. I was surprised and disappointed, but not shocked really. I sold it and happily returned to the ELAD. 
A couple of years passed and I got the itch again and a bit of money. I found an entry level Lamm Deluxe pre in great shape, sent it to Vlad for a going over. Surely THIS was going to be the deal! Not so. It really wasn't much different than the Joule Electra as I remembered it. Smooth, maybee a little more dynamic, but not as much as the ELAD. Tube majic just wasn't there. I sold it after a few months. After all that I had read about Lamm, that was a shock.
I just bought a used tube pre built by a guy in Seattle, and it's there being worked on, so once again, I'll try and see...
I guess my point is, it's a pretty damn good pre. I saw one for sale a week ago for less than $400.00, and I felt like screaming "buy it someone!", best money you'll ever spend! 


       

Oops! First sentence I meant here, not hear. Please excuse the other misspellings. I was at work and in a hurry!

I also want to stress once again how quiet it is, and that because of its own minimal amount of "personality", it seems allow the best to come out of any amp that it's used with.