In my own experience from the very first preamp to 2 years ago, that is over 20 consecutive years of tube preamps...where the competition was always tube preamps. Zanden, Shindo, Wavac, Kondo, as well as ARC and CJ were the primary names that I either owned or auditioned.
The Koda is a minimalist design with no remote control. That itself knocks it out of consideration for most people, even those with the budget to buy it. To use a photographic analogy, the Koda is like a Leica M rangefinder. The Leica M is all manual with no autofocus. It’s a great camera, but only for a particular class of photographer (forget fast action sports or bird photography).
I can't speak for the 15ex but I heard the Robert Koda Takumi K10 last week. Its the best pre amp I've ever head. IMO, an absolutely stunning pre.
Wow...coming from an owner of the Avantgarde Trios, Tron and Allnic electronics, any probably anything from Yamamura, that is saying something my book. Of the group, I have only heard the new Avantgarde Trios and a teeny bit of Allnic, but everything I have read about these other designers is exemplary.
Great insights...thanks for sharing. Very few people have had the opportunity to spend real time with so many world-class preamps. I have heard Ref 10, Soulution 5, Ypsilon, Boulder 2000 series, VTL 7.5 Mk3, but not in my system for a period...just in systems I had some knowledge of. Never heard Mayer or Berning. Would like to hear CH but never wanted to bother the main distributor who is extremely enthusiastic...mainly because whenever I have had interest, other opportunities have come closer to home and more readily. Originally, Gryphon Mephisto and more recently Robert Koda K15EX and K160.
I’m long drawn to trying a silver AVC after having trialled a copper Bespoke… for some time the Emia Ag AVC and the intact silver autoformers have caught my eye but I have a hesitation about whether 47 or 1db steps for volume is enough fine control especially with high sensitivity systems. The reed relays in my LTA MZ3 gives me 100 steps and mostly half db increments.
Mine has 67 steps in 0.5db with a few 1db ones that have been cleverly put in between.
Did you ever hear hattor audio, its khozmo passive preamp with tube buffer outputstage. Looks intressting.my Java HiFi LDR has given great service for the last few years but I find the volume jumps just too coarse these days and so I looked at the Icon5.
My word, the price has rocketed. The Icon4 was around £3K, the Icon5 now Over £7K with Ag autoformers. Way out of my price bracket.
I noticed that Khozmo now have a simple relay shunt attenuator in their line and for £700 worth a punt even though that’s a lot for a simple 1 in 1 out and a few resistors. I believe this volume control is similar to that used in Lampizator DACs.
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When it arrives I’ll give some feedback and if it doesn’t do the magic then perhaps I’ll look for a cheap used Icon4 pro or at least change the Zfoils for AN Ag Tantalum
cheers
Blue58
It does look interesting.
Yon can buy it with shunt volume controll,then there are only two resistors in the signal path e.g. vishay z foil. Tube stage buffers are interesting if you have long cable runs or several power amplifiers, which is where passive preamplifiers reach their limit. The lower the impedance on the passive preamp, the less straight the frequency response of the preamplifier becomes.
