Your All Time Favorite Preamplifiers?

[exile]

Threshold NS 10 and SL 10 after Jon Soderberg did his magic.

 

[Echolane]

I can’t resist chiming in.
i have two favorite preamps. My present one, which is less than 6 months old is a Luxman CL-38uC tube preamplifier. It has a stunningly attractive vintage image with real wood top and sides as well as all sorts of tone controls .

I love that it has a phono stage and that the phono stage is the equivalent of its standalone separate phono stage. IOW, unusually good. It also has one balanced input. I wish it had more, but I’m happy to have one. I confess I can’t discriminate between its contribution to audio excellence versus the Luxman amplifier I have also, the MQ-88uC. How does one tell? I can only say they sound great!k

My second favorite preamplifier is vintage, and I use it paired with a vintage Adcom amplifier at my desktop computer audio system.. It is the Musical Fidelity A3cr. If you were to read a review on this preamplifier perhaps you would see why i like it so much, but here’s an excerpt.

I really enjoy using this preamp and again, the reviewer says it best:

The Musical Fidelity A3CR may not be perfect, but it’s hard to find any major fault. Actually, you need to really exert yourself to find its minor flaws. It is spectacularly well built. It is deliberately over-designed to cope with the widest possible range of sources, cables and power amplifiers. Sonically, it belongs in the top rank of all the preamplifiers I have auditioned.

 

[UluLandi]

Dissanayake custom-made for me.
Over a few decades I had read various reviews and articles about Sarath Dissanayake's handcrafted preamps, and since I recently changed speakers and power amp, I decided to also change my old Audible Illusions Modulus 2D from 1993.
I wanted something special to put in my chain (Avalon Indra, Bartolomeo Aloia Micropal solid-state power amp, Cardas Golden Reference cables) and decided to take a risk on getting a preamp without listening to it.
I must say that before deciding I spoke to a couple of people who had had the Dissanayake Resurrection (a preamp from the 1990s) and they spoke very highly of it (they told me it was the best they had ever had).
Based on this information I set out to find Sarath (which wasn't easy because he doesn't have a website or FB page, but I knew he was in Rome). After finding him and talking to him, I ordered him a line-only valve preamp with only one input (for the DAC, I don't use turntables).
Three months later he brought me home a two-chassis preamp (separate power supply) with a nice thick red front panel engraved with his logo, weighing about 20 kg. On the front it only has the volume knob, on the back the mute lever and on the power supply body it also has a selector to change the voltage and get a bolder sound.
Well, after running it in for a few days, I started to enjoy it and I can say that I am really really satisfied. Detail, scene, background blackness are its characteristics.
The Avalons gives already great perspective and soundstage, but the Dissanayake preamp adds firmness and depth to the whole.
Listening Dido and Aeneas by Currentzis (track 3 Ah Belinda!), or Julius Asal playing Scriabin and Scarlatti, or Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique with Gatti and RCO, are pieces that keep you glued to your seat, whether by day at normal volume, or at late night at low volume.

So thanks Sarath, you built me a great preamp! Incidentally, we gave this custom-made preamp the name Dissanayake "19.07.2024 Mezzanotte24h"

 

[Salectric]

Dissanayake custom-made for me.
Over a few decades I had read various reviews and articles about Sarath Dissanayake's handcrafted preamps, and since I recently changed speakers and power amp, I decided to also change my old Audible Illusions Modulus 2D from 1993.
I wanted something special to put in my chain (Avalon Indra, Bartolomeo Aloia Micropal solid-state power amp, Cardas Golden Reference cables) and decided to take a risk on getting a preamp without listening to it.
I must say that before deciding I spoke to a couple of people who had had the Dissanayake Resurrection (a preamp from the 1990s) and they spoke very highly of it (they told me it was the best they had ever had).
Based on this information I set out to find Sarath (which wasn't easy because he doesn't have a website or FB page, but I knew he was in Rome). After finding him and talking to him, I ordered him a line-only valve preamp with only one input (for the DAC, I don't use turntables).
Three months later he brought me home a two-chassis preamp (separate power supply) with a nice thick red front panel engraved with his logo, weighing about 20 kg. On the front it only has the volume knob, on the back the mute lever and on the power supply body it also has a selector to change the voltage and get a bolder sound.
Well, after running it in for a few days, I started to enjoy it and I can say that I am really really satisfied. Detail, scene, background blackness are its characteristics.
The Avalons gives already great perspective and soundstage, but the Dissanayake preamp adds firmness and depth to the whole.
Listening Dido and Aeneas by Currentzis (track 3 Ah Belinda!), or Julius Asal playing Scriabin and Scarlatti, or Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique with Gatti and RCO, are pieces that keep you glued to your seat, whether by day at normal volume, or at late night at low volume.

So thanks Sarath, you built me a great preamp! Incidentally, we gave this custom-made preamp the name Dissanayake "19.07.2024 Mezzanotte24h"

Can you share any details about the design? Type of tube? Component parts, etc.

 

[UluLandi]

It has four 6J6 and two 6350, but I do not know other about the design.