The CT-5 is here.
The first thing out of the box was this is rather substantial, it's kind of like a two chassis model stuck into one.
It came with Sovteks but I put in new ones as I can NOT find a setting for testing these tubes. It doesn't look like anyone else has had much luck, either.
Hope my new tubes don't have any shorts, looks like there's only one way to find out.
No fireworks or explosions so I guess I'm in good shape...
85% of my CDs are CD-Rs burned from an album (Hhb BurnIT Plus 830 with a Sonic Frontiers SFL-2 preamp and Well Tempered Classic, Ortofon 2M Black, Jolida JD-9) and they sound really close to the actual album.
So, I put on a CD-R of Brian Eno/Robert Fripp's No Pussyfooting and played it at a fairly low volume and got to experience that new tube sound I hate so much. It got better as time went on but it still has a ways to go.
CD player is a Rega Saturn, I just love the sound of that thing.
Once everything was warmed up I put on a CD-R of Frank Zappa's Apostrophe and turned up the volume a bit.
WOW!
Other than that new tube glare, I can't find fault with this preamp.
Tonally, everything is just right. It brings out a lot of bass but it's not bass heavy, it's not tilted towards the top end, it's just what I was looking for.
Dynamics are right there, this brings out more detail than anything I've had the pleasure of owning and the soundstage is really something.
It's very wide and deep and every so often it'll bring out something I hadn't heard before and it'll be outside of the speakers where sound couldn't possibly be coming from (like the entranceway to my front door because there's a wall there).
I like the VTLs so much as they really produce a 3D soundstage and this preamp really does a great job there.
I'd been searching for years for the preamp to go with 3.7s and a Sonic Frontiers SFL-2 wasn't quite up to snuff, a deHavilland UltraVerve 3 was getting much closer but it would bury the details, the Premier 17LS was really close but I could tell it still needed something a little better.
Well, this is it.
I got to thinking as I was listening, this isn't so much of an electronic component, it's more of a drug.
A couple of final thoughts:
because the soundstage is wider it's also more focused in the center, it's as if you moved the speakers two foot closer together. The center is just right THERE.
As it also brings out more detail you can hear all the inflections of the human voice.
Franky Zappa was snarky as hell and you can hear every nuance of his voice during that silly story about Nanook The Eskimo.
Apostrophe' has a lot of stuff going on and instruments were not just positioned left, right or center but also up and down in space.
Tina Turner just floats out from about 6' off the ground to the right - it was just perfect.
I can't really think of anything else to add. This is the first time I've been happy with the 3.7s. Getting the 1.7s to sound right was real easy but because the 3.7s are better speakers I was having a hard time finding components good enough to match them.
Not any more.
