A few more quick impressions - I'm amazed at how dead quiet this thing is. Most other active pre's I've used have had a slight buzz or hiss of background noise, but the Erleuchtung is dead silent.
As for the music, the best I can describe it is white pearls on black velvet. The music has a luminuous quality, an irridescence, but is sharply defined against a silent (black) background. There is very little bleed or smear of one instrument or voice to another. When a performer doubles up his vocals, you can hear the over tracking of it quite clearly. Vocals especially take on a "they are in the room" clarity.
Also, music never seems rushed. Even on fast, complex music, things never sound "busy". Individual musical strands and lines can still be distinctly heard and followed. On many (even very good systems), when music gets fast and complex, things tend to run together and you get a sort of "wall of sound", where you get the gist of the music, but a lot of the individual elements are washed out. Not with the Erleuchtung. Timing, rhythm, clarity, cohesiveness, and seperation are amazingly good.
Transients are very good as well, but it doesn't sound "fast" per se, as a "fast" sound is what I associate with a piece that tends to emphasize transients, especially the leading edge. And decay is also interesting. Usually you have something that has a fast decay (usually matching a "fast" leading edge), or you have a piece with nice decay, but have to live with a sluggish initial transient. The Erleuchtung lets you hear a fast initial transient and a full decay for each note. And it manages to do it without sounding splashy. Nice
Some gear sounds like a Renoir looks - gives a good impression, but are blurry and indistinct on closer inspection. Some sounds like an MC Escher painting - startling clarity, but metallic and surreal. The Erleuchtung in this context would be a Vermeer - clarity, intimacy, and naturalness.