My buddy rang me the other day, and stated he had a new
preamp for me to try out. It’s a Conrad Johnson clone, and sports 4 12AX7 tubes. The parts are all of the highest quality (PRP resistors, a 400VA shielded transformer, HEXFRED rectifiers, NOS choke, Cardas RCA jacks, and an ALPS Black Beauty volume pot.) It sports two inputs, along with a mute circuit.
I put in a quad of Raytheon 12AX7 Black Plate tubes, let the unit burn in for several hours, and sat down to listening. This preamp sounds outstanding. I was amazed at how quiet it is, and the lifelike presentation of the music it provided. It does everything right, and brings out the best regarding what tubes have to offer. The soundstage is wide and deep, with excellent depth that tubes just seem to achieve easily. The treble is very natural sounding, and vocals are extraordinary.
I think I’ll be keeping this long term. I tried it with both a Pass Labs XA 30.5, along with a pair of TBI Millennia in mono. Both amps sound outstanding with this. The TBI really shines with this preamp. Using a Wavelength Audio Cosine DAC as input to the C/J clone, the sound was so good that even the vinyl crowd would be pleased with this setup.
