This is the Purity beta unit that sealed the deal for me. Yooper and I had done a side by side of my 36.5 and his Dodd a while back and I was smitten with the Dodd right away as more detailed and a little deeper in soundstage. Very close but I immediately felt I needed to get a Dodd after hearing it. After I sold the MW I noticed Bill's request for beta testers and realized on paper that it was similar to the Dodd in its use of tubes so I thought, "what the heck", I'll give it a try as it was no risk and I could always grab a Dodd unit later.
Bill worked with me to custom design this beta unit to my needs and I was immediately in love when I flipped it on. I knew right away that the name "Purity" was not some random title he plucked out of the sky for this piece, but it really conveyed what came through. As a Salk HT3 owner, I love purity in my sound and want it all - meaning no roll offs, no bloating of this, or tempering of that. Just give it all to me BUT, allow me to adjust when it DOES suit me to do so, and doing that through the tube rolling is perfect. I have to say that this unit gave me more detail than the Dodd did from my memory. It does not have the complete lack of background noise that only a battery unit can provide, but it is very quiet.
The beta unit wasn't perfect, but it allowed me to roll tubes through it and play with the sound. I ended up coming full circle back to Bill's original set of NOS tubes. I had the top off the unit for the entire time I had it.
The new unit really floored me with the bass it produces. So here I was expecting the same clarity of the beta unit and POW!, I get added bass in spades. I didn't even know a preamp could get you that. Maybe it is the new transformer which was not in my beta unit.
The soundstage is even wider with the production unit. I was limited to the outer edges of the speakers with the beta unit but now it extends about 12 to 18 inches wider than the speakers. Bill provided some NOS tubes of some kind - I have not popped the top yet. I've run her for about 20 hours now and she's settled in nicely.
There are many ways to customize your unit and Bill will reasonably charge you for these items. I chose the sexy blue volume readout, 3 sets of inputs, and I have 3 sets of outputs - 2 high and one low, so I can bi-amp someday. I did not go for the balanced design of the next version. Based on how well the SE worked for me I didn't need it in my mind.
I spent more time waffling on knobs than anything. I have silver knobs coming to perhaps give it a more hip appearance. Everyone else here seems to think the gold is old fuddy duddy so to avoid that affiliation... Maybe a wooden knob would be nice, but Bill and I could not spend the time on that up front. I needed to receive it for this video shoot today and we settled on the gold for now.
One thing about Bill you need to know is he will bend over backwards to please you. And I am very pleased with his service and his fantastic product.
I was lazy and did not prop up the camera for these shots, so they are a little fuzzy:
