In order to finance my next great step towards audio Nirvana, I'm going to have to sell some gear. So I'm looking for expressions of interest in my trusty Space Tech Labs QA001 pre-amp.
Space Tech Labs is a one-man outfit that operates out of Vancouver, Canada. The man behind the designs I know only as Albert. His products pop up rarely, but are uniformly praised for their excellent sonics at ludicrously low prices.
The QA001 is Albert's entry level pre-amp. In its standard form, it employs a pair of 6SL7 tubes. But Albert's designs cleverly allow you to use a wide array of octal tubes without having to fiddle with anything. For quite some time, I happily used a pair of 6SN7 tubes, which offered about half the gain of the 6SL7s, but an excellent sonic experience.
I've used the pre-amp with both a pair of gain clone monoblocks (these amps were very sensitive, so I used the 6SN7 tubes here for the lower gain) and a Music Reference EM7 SET amp (I reverted to using the 6SL7 tubes). In both cases, the pre-amp proved extremely quiet through my 93dB-sensitivity speakers. Even with tubes in both my pre-amp and amp now, I hear absolutely no hiss with my ear up to the speakers until the volume control is at around 3 o'clock.
Importantly, the pre-amp has provided all of the dimensionality and tonal richness that I had wanted when I decided to try using tubes. I don't have enough experience with tubed equipment to know whether it provides a particularly "tubey" sound or not. All I know is that for a very low price, this pre-amp provided life and body to the music that had been absent using a good solid state pre-amp. There are few reviews available online, but this model pre-amp collected a small handful of raves on Audiogon (or maybe Audio Asylum) as "better than $3000 pre-amps", for whatever that's worth.
Direct from Albert, the standard version of this pre-amp (one pair of inputs, one pair of outputs in an MDF box) goes for around $450 (I think). My version has a few upgrades: a solid oak chassis (blackened), a second set of outputs, and fancy volume knob and feet. It has just a single pair of RCA inputs. Even with the cosmetic improvements, this little pre-amp would never win any beauty contests. But it sounds just beautiful.
I'll post pictures soon. In the meantime, let me know if you might be interested in this sensational introduction to the wonders that tubed pre-amplification can provide.
I'm not committed to selling the pre-amp at this stage. But if I do, I'd be hoping to get $300 for it.
Chad
