[Randy]

Tomorrow I will be sending the LDRx on to David in Oak Park.  He ought to have it by the end of the week.

[Nick B]

Hi Nick,

Thank you for your report and best wishes for a speedy recovery from your eye ailments. There are few things in life as important as maintaining good health and when things go wrong with that everything else takes a back seat.

I do appreciate your comments about the spartan aesthetics of the LDR1. We took a very simple approach with the enclosure on our first product and plan to using all the feedback we've accumulated to come up with something that I think you and others will like a lot better. We hope to release our LDR3B by late February which will be a 3 input, 2 output balanced (XLR) passive preamp. I believe it will be the first ever fully balanced passive preamp designed around LDRs. Sometime after the LDR3B, we'll be releasing the LDR3, a single-ended version also with 3 inputs and 2 outputs. The LDR3 will replace the the original LDR1/LDR6 line. A 3D Cad drawing of the LDR3B is included below.

All the best to your and your family and I hope all goes well with your next surgery.

Regards,
Morten

Hi Morten,
Thank you for your well wishes and to a couple of you for the private emails of encouragement. Much appreciated. I got a 2nd opinion in California and my local doctor agrees to do no more surgery for a while. I had an exam this morning and everything is healing fine.
I like the look of the new chassis and a more rectangular box is certainly helpful for the multiple jacks.  It's nice when a manufacturer listens to comments and tries to improve a product. Am looking forward to Randy's comments
Nick

[Randy]

I certainly enjoyed my time with the LDRx.  I've long been a fan of passive preamps and had the once highly regarded "Line Drive" many years ago, so long ago, in fact, that I've forgotten the mfg. of that unit. For a few years I just bypassed pres and had my CDP, equipped with a volume control, (a Levinson unit) directly driving the power amps. For a while I used a Prometheus balanced TVC passive pre, I then went to a PS Audio integrated amp, then a Virtue 901 integrated. As you might notice, my history reveals an attempt, one way or another, to avoid active preamps. While I've never owned a megabuck pre, at one time I did have a Conrad Johnson solid state pre, briefly rated "Class A" by Stereophile, so at least they thought it was pretty good, but I never found an affordable, for me at least, active preamp I was ever completely happy with. I even had, still have, a tube preamp from English mfg. Croft. They all colored the sound in some way, or reduced transparency. 

Most recently, I have gone back to using the Prometheus TVC with the Virtue.  Supposedly, the Virtue's internal volume control is bypassed by turning the volume knob to maximum, allowing the use of an outboard preamp, but I have no idea if that's true.  What is true, however, is that I thought adding the TVC into the mix improved the overall sonics, making for a smoother, more analog sound than did the integrated by itself. Another plus for the passive pre, is that with the Virture, which is battery powered. it allows me to get the amplification off the grid, an advantage here where the electricity goes into the toilet every night around 6:00. (Never have found a power conditioner that did much to help with that problem. I've tried many of the usual suspects.)

The Prometheus does not have balance control or remote control. These are two factors that originally made the LDRx attractive to me, even though, as far as sonics go, I was very happy with the Virtue/Premetheus combo. There is something about my listening room which tips the balance to the left channel in most recordings, which made the PS Audio (and the Levinson CDP), so nice as both had finely controllable channel balance levels.

I won't pretend to be able to describe the nuances of the sonics of the LDRx, but it was a great improvement over the Prometheus. Bass was better, it had a cleaner, clearer sound, treble was smoother and less sharp sounding, detail was better. Gorgeous midrange. A weakness of the Prometheus is that it gets a bit congested in loud orchestral passages. Nothing like that with the LDRx.

Sorry for the muddled "review", but just the same, this pre is a keeper, and I eventually plan to order one of the upcoming balanced versions.

[konut]

I didn't find it to be muddled at all. Nice description of your journey. Is your source still the Levinson CDP?

[Randy]

I didn't find it to be muddled at all. Nice description of your journey. Is your source still the Levinson CDP?

No, the power supply on the Levinson went kaput, and since as far as I can tell, it's impossible to find anyone who can repair it, I moved on.  My current and one and only source is a Sony 5400 SACD modified by the late Allen Wright of VSE.

[tortugaranger]

Sorry for the muddled "review", but just the same, this pre is a keeper, and I eventually plan to order one of the upcoming balanced versions.

Hi Randy,

Thank you for the review. Definitely not a muddle. You are another in a growing list of people who own transformer volume controllers (TVCs) that have concluded the LDRx passive is superior to their TVC. I've heard so many good things about TVCs that it's quite a compliment to hear this kind of feedback.

I've also had several customers tell me that the LDRx beat out the purely digital volume control built into their DACs. Who am I to argue! 

Thanks again Randy,

Cheers,
Morten

[dburna]

Ladies and gentlemen, he's big, he's red, and gosh darn it he's a MACHINE!  Let's hear a warm round of welcome for our next contestant on the LDR Tour....Pete.

Sent him the LDR Sat am.  He should receive it on Mon 2/3.

My review of the LDR will follow later this weekend when time permits.

Spoiler: enjoyed it immensely.

-dB

[Big Red Machine]

This thing is pretty decent.  Stay tuned.   

[Randy]

This thing is pretty decent.  Stay tuned.   

Yes, it's been difficult going back to my old passive preamp. Morten, hurry up!

[dburna]

OK, it took me a little longer than I expected to get back to this.  Post-Super Bowl recovery, I guess (from staying up late, didn't care about the outcome).

I probably have a different situation than most -- I don't have a pre-amp in my system currently.  I am using Pure Music for attenuation.  In the past I have been using tube integrateds primarily, but I have been moving to SS in part to make the system more user-friendly for my wife (tubes can be intimidating for the uninitiated).  When I moved to NCore amps, I made a fiscal decision that a commensurate pre-amp would have to wait.

Because the NCores are powerful and my speakers are high sensitivity, I need a good deal of attenuation under normal listening circumstances -- usually -45 dB, give or take.  At that attenuation level, Pure Music (and indeed most digital attenuation) just isn't a stellar solution.  I knew that going into the deal.  So my current setup does not show off the other components to their best advantage.  BTW, this is not to knock PM, which is a fine product -- I would venture that most software-based digital attenuation solutions have the same issues.

I had a Khozmo passive for a while and have demoed a Bent DIY passive as well.  I can say with certainty that the Tortuga LDR is significantly better in my system than the Khozmo I had.  Even though I haven't had it for a while, the performance difference was large.  The Bent and the Tortuga are much closer in performance -- it would be unfair to make any further comparisons because I haven't had the Bent in my system for some time.

Here's what I can say about the Tortuga in comparison to the PM digital attenuation:
1. Dynamics are back in my system
2. Low-level listening no longer collapses the soundstage into a lifeless mound of ectoplasm
3. Bass performance is much improved -- it is tighter and less-one note
4. Clarity/transparency is probably the biggest improvement I noticed
5. Ability to hear the pluses and minuses of any recording is there in spades
6. Impressive speed and articulation

There is an element of "weight" that an active pre-amp brings to the table, but with most I have tried, it comes at the expense of some speed and transparency.  IMHO, the Tortuga does a better job of paring away that unnecessary "thickness" in favor of a more direct, "truthful" sound.  It's a trade-off I am happy to make.  Factor in that I am running a single source computer-based system, and active pre-amps provide a lot more functionality (and added cost) than I really need.

In short, I was very, very impressed with the Tortuga.  As Morten noted in my conversation with him, "if an LDR passive works with your system, it will really work".  I agree wholeheartedly, and am looking forward to bringing one of these units "into the fold" on a permanent basis. 

I hope the remaining tour members will enjoy this LDR as much as I did.  If, like me, you are using significant digital attenuation, you owe it to yourself to try one of these passives.  I doubt you'll go back.  I thank Morten for sending this unit on tour....and congratulate him for a job well-done.

-dB

P.S. For the remaining tour users, I strongly recommend you read the Tortuga web page covering functions of the remote.  I think you will find it very useful: http://www.tortugaaudio.com/product/infrared-remote/.

[Randy]

Nice review, David.

[tortugaranger]

Nice review, David.

I agree. Thanks David.
Cheers,
Morten

[Big Red Machine]

Here’s a quick review of the Tortuga passive preamp. 

Some of the attributes I want to comment on:
Speed
Accuracy
Tone
Build
Listenability

System signal path is Afterburner 8 outlet, BPT Ultra 3.5, HAL MS-2 music server, Lampizator L4/G4, Tortuga in place of the Dude, TRL Samsons, Soundscape 8’s.  Cables are DIY power and speaker, Soundsilver IC’s.

I only use ripped music now via JRiver.  My most familiar playlist is called the Fun List and I am intimately familiar with all the songs I put in there.  About 100 tracks long.

The preamp is lightweight and tidy.  Super easy to hook up and the remote is intuitive.  I had to do no research on how to use either piece.  I did hold the volume control down for some time before firing up to make sure it was as low as it would go and wiped out any possible fatfingering I might have done to it while setting up.  I am partial to blue lights so was pleased to see the blue indicator light that flashes when you send commands to the unit and turns off at system off.  It did however look like a pipsqueak when parked on the very large Dude preamp.  Its cross-section was about the size of the Dude logo.







I will make some comments about how I felt it stacked up against the Dude as it is my reference but right now I only want to speak to how it grabbed my attention on its own merits.

The first attribute that struck me was its accuracy/detail retrieval.  While I know every one of these tunes there was no escaping every nuance of every song right off the bat.  All the details of the instruments and movement of sounds back and forth across the soundstage was spot on.  The bass was also prominent and tight.  My first session with it I was not pleased with how the sound was detailed but perhaps slightly “too” pronounced as I started getting some fatigue.  My first reaction to that was perhaps my attraction to the harmonics of tube gear is more what my brain can tolerate versus the Tortuga which is not tubed.  Maybe I’m full of crap but that was my thought at the time.  The session right now is not giving me fatigue, so go figure.

Speed.  No slurring, no hesitation, no blurring of notes.  Attack is very good.  A more aggressive character than I am used to but not objectionable.  If you are starting a new system on a budget I would say this preamp would be a fantastic choice and surpass a ton of preamps out there for way more dough. 

The other word that kept popping into my head was tone.  I feel that just about everything I am hearing is honest and true to the recording.  Piano sounds like piano for instance.  Guitar is very good.  Voices, both male and female, are also spot on.  The one thing I could not nail was the sound of tom toms sounding like a real drum being struck.  I’m nitpicking, I know.  But when a drumstick hits a Remo head it has a scuff and it has a reverberation of the head as well as the volume of the drum.  Having hit enough of them in my day I know the early attack tone of what the head does when struck.  I could not get that tone that the Dude gives me.  Its subtle for sure and most would never know they missed it but it is one of the synergies existing between the Lampi and the Dude right now.  Maybe the Dueland caps in both devices contribute to that.  Not sure.  But for sure the Tortuga is 98 out of 100 here.

For me the biggest factor is listenability; am I engaged in the session or just waiting for it to be over.  I am not having fatigue, speed, bass, or accuracy regrets right at this very moment.  What I am lacking is a total immersion.  This could very well be my affinity for tubed gear.  Over the years I have always moved away from solid state feeding solid state (as many of you would laugh out loud at knowing how many pieces I have had in and out my possession over the years).  Now I have tube dac feeding tube pre feeding solid state amps.  I may, in fact, be missing detail with the Dude set up but I can say it is totally engaging to me.  But heck, we’re talking about a monster, hand wired, beast of a preamp against a kit that is giving such high performance against the goliath that its almost ridiculous when you step back and look at the big picture.  I’ve had $2000 and $3000 active preamps that were no better than this Tortuga.  Crazy good for the money.  Ridonkulous.




So Samson tried to slay Goliath.  He didn’t kill him but he left a mark.  Ouchy.

Thanks for letting me into the tour.  This is a very nice piece and anyone needing a preamp should really consider it.  It is much more than a starter piece or a stop-gap.

[tortugaranger]

Crazy good for the money.  Ridonkulous.

Hey Big Red M.

Thank you for an excellent candid review. 
And for Ridonkulous. Can't have enough of that. 

P.S.  Your Dude may be the first preamp I've seen that actually looks physically intimidating. 

Cheers,
Morten

[Big Red Machine]

You're welcome.  it is a very nice design.

That's why they say: The Dude abides. 

Kinda like Jabba the hut.

[rajacat]

It would've been interesting to have substituted a quality tube amp for the Samson and then run the comparison again. Although my hybrid pre isn't in the same league as The Dude, I found that the LDRx improved the overall SQ and the fatigue factor was low. I have a pair of modded/rebuilt Heathkit W5m monoblocks. It seems that almost any rig can be improved by adding a few tubes. The X factor.

[Freo-1]

It would've been interesting to have substituted a quality tube amp for the Samson and then run the comparison again. Although my hybrid pre isn't in the same league as The Dude, I found that the LDRx improved the overall SQ and the fatigue factor was low. I have a pair of modded/rebuilt Heathkit W5m monoblocks. It seems that almost any rig can be improved by adding a few tubes. The X factor.

Hard to argue against this.   

[WireNut]

Guess I'm up next.

After joining the tour, I have switched to all balanced connections in my bi-amp system. My current tube preamp gives me 28db of gain in balanced mode. I have know problem re-wiring my system to unbalanced connections in order to try the Tortuga passive preamp. I'm not totally SOLD on balanced connections since all of my interconnects are under 1m. If the Tortuga preamp can drive my bi-amp system with zero gain, then I think it will be a keeper. Looking forward to the Tortuga preamp tour.

Thank you Morten.


           

[Randy]

It would've been interesting to have substituted a quality tube amp for the Samson and then run the comparison again. Although my hybrid pre isn't in the same league as The Dude, I found that the LDRx improved the overall SQ and the fatigue factor was low. I have a pair of modded/rebuilt Heathkit W5m monoblocks. It seems that almost any rig can be improved by adding a few tubes. The X factor.

Tubes? We don't need no stinkin' tubes.   

[rajacat]

What if your system sounds better with tubes in the sauce? Do your ears lie?

Why do you have a
Croft Super Micro Pre (all tube) in your rig?