Wyred 4 Sound STP

Today, I was delivered my order of Vishay Z foil resistors. 2 of these resistors are intended to replace the 100 ohm Dales that are always in the signal path regardless of the resistor setting selected with the volume control. I have in the past replaced other quality resistors with Vishay nude resistors as well as with the new Z foils..Always heard an improvement in transparency! Hope to have the new Z foils installed by next mid week and will post what I hear as the result. Tom

This is a little late, but here it is.

I found the preamp to be incredibly quiet and a good very good performer over all. I really liked how any input could be designated as a home theater bypass, that I could name the inputs etc.

I ended up not keeping mine because in my system it sounded a little too lean in the midrange, and a little too dry for my taste.

Floyd,

In my system the Wyred preamp offers as much flesh as my previous Melos or Belles preamps yet with better definition lower noise floor and greater flexiblity. I think neither the Melos or Belles are your traditional thick in the middle tube preamp, they are both very simple in design and layout. System dependent and user preference of color rendition as always.
Tom

I have had my STP SE running for a while now, and it is so nice to have the HT bypass feature. What some may note as dry or harsh sound I believe is the amazing transparency of this unit. I drive a Wyred 250 watt amp with it, and the first thing I noticed was the incredible bass extension, even over and above the amps' native ability. Midrange and highs sound more tubelike to me in my system than before, and I didn't want the hassle (for me) of tubes. Whatever you put in will come out magnified. Bad recordings sound worse, good sound better. I only use CD's, not vinyl, but I can hear differences between my Arcam DV139 and my modded Oppo BD83. This is an astounding preamp for the money, compact, quiet, and it runs cool. Of course, there is always room for improvement, and they are considering a reference model soon. Listen to one for yourself and decide. I personally am very pleased. The soundstage is huge, ouside the walls of my room on some recordings, and that surround effect mentioned earlier is real. I too was looking behind me. I could honestly use this a a 3 channel HT rig and be happy.

I'm glad I am not going crazy. The ability of this pre to immerse you in a sort of surround sound effect is amazing. If you want to hear how well this thing uncovers phase information just grab Michael Jackson's Dangerous CD and play track one, its freaking amazing.

Soundstage is limited only by your source equipment. I have used a DECWARE ZCD, Monarchy DAC, Havana DAC and Stello DA220 DAC all as sources and I was easily able to hear differences in soundstage depth, width and height.

It sounds exactly like what you feed it which imo is exactly what you want from a pre.

In terms of sound quality, I wholeheartedly agree with chipperman's assessment. I absolutely love this thing.