Video Asylum

Posted by jeffreybehr (A) on April 03, 2007 at 00:43:54

In Reply to: Anyone using a multichannel analogue preamp like posted by saywhat on March 26, 2007 at 18:32:29:

It's all analog and vacuumtubed, using six single-triode 6C4/M8080/MC90/6135s for gain and MOSFETs as output buffers to reduce output impedance. I understand this preamp uses 'the same' technology that the 2-channel CT6 uses, which means 'styrene coupling caps and not the much-more-expensive Teflon-film coupling caps the CT5 and higher c-j preamps use.

Its predecessor in my system was an all-analog Audio Refinement Pre 5* that sounded VERY good, but the MET1 does sound more 'whole'. Harry Pearson in 'The Absolute Sound' wrote that it added 'meat' to the music (compared with the 'bones' out of the SS Meitner stuff he also uses), something I agree with heartily. It's expensive but worth it IMO.

I use the DACs in my 2 discplayers, a Denon DVD-2900 and an older Toshiba Cinema-Series DVD player that I use as a CDP. Of course I use the analog outputs of the 2900, into the 6-channel inputs of the MET1 (which is the rare multichannel preamp with TWO sets of MC inputs), and I use high-quality IC.

The MET1 has NO bass management capability, but it has MC level adjustments to the half-dB including a separate set for its Ambience-Retrieval Mode (ARM) that's usable on 2-channel inputs.

I spend at least as much time listening to multichannel big-orchestra Classical and film music as I do watching movies, and the addition of this preamp improved my system considerably.

* An interesting name for a 6-channel preamp, but what would you expect from the French?
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Tin-eared audiofool and obsessed landscape fotografer.
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