Preamp Advice/experiences needed

My experience is that preamps are the most critical electronic component and really set the sonics of your system. I was finally able to afford a great tubed preamp twenty years ago and will never go back, I am a big fan of Audio Research and Conrad Johnson.

From what I know of your system, I definitely recommend on of those. Given your CJ… maybe start there. I really think there is a lot of synergy with the same components. I would spend as much as you can, and go used to further reduce cost. Preamps from these companies will last decades. If you put your system and venue under your ID, we can probably be of much greater help.

You can see my systems under my ID. I think you will find ARC more detailed than CJ… both incredibly musical.

I recently auditioned a Vac Renaissance Mk 5 and it was damn fine. But there are some issues I have with it that would not make it a great fit in my system

What issues did you have, and what improvements are you looking for over the VAC?

I do not recommend an Ayre preamp if you're not using it balanced, which I assume the CJ is not. Ayre optimizes their equipment for true balanced operation. I've used the KX-5 Twenty balanced and unbalanced, same with a non-Twenty version of the KX-R. The KX-R balanced was the best preamp I've ever used but it was better balanced. That was also with one of their amps so maybe it was synergy.

I have a Calypso Eclipse. I won't touch a lot on the sound quality side but, it's very satisfying to me. First, taking a logic, practicality, common sense view, it has several features that are major reasons why I have it. It has a large easy to see display, it's always muted when bringing it out of standby, the display and LEDs are dimmable, the top cover is held on by Velcro making tube access a snap and very importantly to me it has remote control switchable polarity inversion (often incorrectly called phase inversion) (yes, I know that many people are not sensitive to correct/incorrect absolute polarity).

One caveat is about tube changing. Aesthetix does warn about this issue. To avoid circuit damage, a wait of 15 to 20 minutes is required between powering off the unit and any tube removal. I suppose that the caps need to fully discharge before pulling out any tubes. Also, while I do have their new version of the remote control, I don't like it and prefer to use the original one.

It is a "musical" sounding component as opposed to an analytical or clinical/sterile sounding component. I'm using it with a McCormack DNA-500 with SMC Audio's second generation Silver Plus upgrade to drive a pair of Focal Sopra 2 speakers. The old saying that there is no such thing as too much power is easily observed in this case. I think the Calypso works well in my setup. Big and deep soundstage, boatloads of detail and lots of beautiful sound.