I also read Dick Olsher’s review of the CA-2 with great interest, not the least because at first glance I thought the unit looked uncannily similar to the Morrison ELAD, which I use in my system. Olsher didn’t actually say that it was the best preamp regardless of price, although he did say that it was “absolutely the most superbly detailed piece of amplification to ever grace my playback system” and “the CA-2 puts to shame $5,000 solid-state line stages”. Indeed, the similarities between it and the ELAD are striking:
-Both are extremely minimalist designs (As an aside, I don’t know why 47 Lab gear gets so much ink praising it’s design simplicity while designs such as these get so little attention. It seems that audiophiles never give due respect to gear when it doesn’t cost as much as a down payment on a car.)
-Both are 2-piece units with a stoutly-built external power supply
-Both use the AD797 opamp, although the CA-2 appears to use 2 per channel to give it an extra 3 db of gain versus the ELAD (9db vs 6 db)
-Both are designed to be powered on constantly
-Both have just 2 inputs
-Both use pots for volume control (ELAD uses ALPS, CA-2 uses Noble)
..with only a few functional differences
-CA-2 has 1 output; ELAD has 2
-CA-2 has a single pot and no balance control; ELAD has dual mono pots
-ELAD uses no capacitors in its signal path; the CA-2 uses polypropylene caps
When I originally saw the review, I thought that the CA-2 was an even better deal than the ELAD given it’s price ($695 versus $790 for the ELAD). However, I just saw on
www.raysamuelsaudio.com that its price has gone up to $995, so demand must be good. Nevertheless it looks like a compelling offering, and based on what I know about the AD797, I don’t doubt that it sounds every bit as good as Dick Olsher said.
