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In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: The ultimate buffer – light in the end of a tunnel
Post Subject: Kleiber surprises while Gergiev snores: Placette ActivePosted by RonyWeissman on: 2/24/2007
Just a brief note on my recent addition: Placette Active preamp.  Due to a recent purchase of Tannoy Golds, I had the opportunity to pull an old McIntosh SS amp out of the closet recently.  This amp has gain controls, so I tried running it with and without my tube preamplifier in the system.  The difference wasn''t HUGE, but it was noticeable. I preferred the sound without, so I picked up a used Placette active on Audiogon, which arrived a few days ago.

Let me say that talking about preamps is pretty boring stuff, but I told Romy I would post a few thoughts...I have no way of doing the with/without comparison as I sold the McIntosh last week after deciding that I don't want to keep it or the Tannoy Golds.  My 300B amplifier came back from the shop this morning, so I replaced my tube preamp with the placette for a first listen.  Well at first I was cursing my local audio guy because he returned my amplifier still in broken condition, absolutely no sound was coming out of the drivers while I powered up the system.  I put in a CD anyway (La Traviata, C Kleiber) and hit play just to see if any noise was going to come out and then out of a far away place came strings like I would want playing at my funeral. I immediately gave my old custom made two phono input tube preamp that I was so proud of the big middle finger (appologies romy for plagarism) and sat back to listen to the entire La Traviata CD without interruption.

I have several CDs that I use to make sure my system is running well. Typically I change back and forth after a matter of a few moments with each. With the Placette in my system I was listening to entire preformances.  Even some that I use to really enjoy and with my new preamp I found quite boring all of a sudden (Prokofiev, Romeo and Juliet, Gergiev).  This is really something different.

People at the goodsoundclub.com site typically have world-class sytems, so I won't bore you with more details.  One thing that struck me though is that the 'clarity' I thought was so interesting with my earlier tube preamp (typically associated with SS gear) has been replaced with a softness and richness (typically associated with tube gear) that is almost overwhelming. I am getting much closer to what these Vitavox S2s are capable of. And now I can hear what is WRONG with my system. That is also something different.

Thanks,  R Weissman

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