odysseyhk - thanks for the impressions. Did you think the Tempest was noisy? I am coming off of a tube preamp and I do like a little "richness" so maybe the Tempest would be more to my liking. I am really curios about the Etesian though.
Alex - I am looking forward to hearing what you think about the two preamps.
I'm not saying Tempest is noisy. The fact is that passive pre-amp has no active electronic component at all and it is absolutely quiet. You will fill the different of noise floor. In fact, it is not apple to apple comparison between active and passive pre-amp.
Since Tempest has the mm/mc phono stage, it is more subject to RF noise pick-up. There was a post regarding tweak to avoid picking up RF noise with un-connected RCA input. It is simple, get a RCA plug and short the input RCA. The noise floor will reduce significantly. However, it is still not comparable with Etesian which is absolute quiet.
To me, I like Tempest more than Etesian if budget allows. Etesian is so pure and simple and at the price point, it is unbeatable. Since Etesian sounds a bit towards lean, I prefer to match it with Epiphony which is a bit more punchy than Nightingale. However, I'm still awaiting for my Nightingale to fully break-in before a fair comment be made.
