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View Full Version : New preamp and XLR thoughts



Regis
01-11-2007, 08:43 AM
I long remembered Bo's advice on XLR as I searched for a new pre-amp. The initial requirements were: the preamp had to support XLR, have a phono input and be of recent technology. As much as I valued vintage gear, I find that the newer gear of this decade just surpasses most of the gear of yesteryear in performance.

Searched for months on Ebay and Audiogon and came to the conclusion that Audiogon is the way to go. That's where I got my Perreaux 200p amplifier. I found an intriguing classified ad for a BV Audio preamp. Never even seen one on Ebay and there was only one for sale on Audiogon. I was considering Classe, Aragon and others.

The BV Audio P10 is still being made in Quincy, MA and retails for almost $2,200. Not that it's that expensive compared to others. The guy selling it, was replacing it with an $8K Conrad Johnson and he told me that it took a lot of listening to convince him to get the CJ. He had a three day guarantee and the pre-amp supported all my requirements. He promised that it would knock my socks off, so I purchased the amp. He's had a lot of experience and has owned a lot of equipment, so I took his word for it.

The P10 has some very cool features. No volume pot or attenuator. The volume is handled through a CPU, so you'll never have 'dirty pot' noise or wearing out of the volume pot and you get better channel separation. There are over 200 steps to the volume, so you can get the 'exact' volume you want. The relays are gold in sealed nitrogen gas units, so you'll never have dirty relays. The phono section uses Burr Brown and Analog Device chips for the A/D conversion and is MM/MC adjustable. All the other inputs are adjustable for gain through the remote control, so you can balance the gain between the different inputs. It's main tenet is that it's supposed to be as transparent as possible. Another reason I purchased it was the lack of used units. This was the first one I had ever seen in months of cruising Ebay and Audiogon. That meant to me, that the people purchasing them, were keeping them.

The P10 got delivered yesterday afternoon and before I went home, I picked up some Mogami Gold Series XLR cables from 'Guitar Center' and a Monster Cable RCA set for the DAC (an XLR CD player is next on the list). I set it all up, wondering if it was going to be as good as the seller stated. I have not been happy with the system. The old pre-amp was the main weakness. It made me suspect of the L-300's. The old sound wasn't all that great. It could get plenty loud, but the midrange seemed to be dominated by the lower end of the midbass and I sensed a lost of detail in the upper midrange, as well as it 'sitting back'. The bass was a little too boomy for me. I wondered if I was going to have to swap out speakers too. Was a 3-way, not the way to go? Would a 4-way give me the midrange detail I was looking for.

Turned it all on and started listening to well-known tracks. The volume adjustment from the remote control took longer because of the finer steps, but it was nice to set it exactly to where you wanted it and with subtle room to adjust it. The volume didn't jump up sharply, but rather ramped up and downed smoothly. The display was readable from ten feet away.

Now I'm happy. The L-300's weren't to be faulted after all. The upper end of the midrange came back out of hiding, flaunting detail I hadn't heard before. The high's were nicely done and the lower end of the midbass was totally behaving. The lows were tight and clean without sounding boomy. It was an overall balanced sound output that had a very nice transparency to it. There are no 'tone' adjustments and that was fine with me. This is a great pre-amp and I was happy to have shelled out the $700 for it used. If you're looking for a nice preamp that gets along well with MOSFET amps and JBL's, I'd like to recommend this. I'm including a linkee below. Click on the 'technology' area for an interesting animated demonstration. Not a lot of marketing, hype or even reputation, but nobody's selling their's either and I'm not selling mine anytime soon...

http://www.bvaudio.com/p10.htm

jblnut
01-11-2007, 12:43 PM
Thanks for the review ! I checked out their website and I do have one reservation - it looks as if everything is converted to digital and then back to analog again (like old Sony Ta1000-ESD did this too). If this is the case, I would think that might not be a good thing.

Do you know if this is true ?

jblnut



I long remembered Bo's advice on XLR as I searched for a new pre-amp. The initial requirements were: the preamp had to support XLR, have a phono input and be of recent technology. As much as I valued vintage gear, I find that the newer gear of this decade just surpasses most of the gear of yesteryear in performance.

Searched for months on Ebay and Audiogon and came to the conclusion that Audiogon is the way to go. That's where I got my Perreaux 200p amplifier. I found an intriguing classified ad for a BV Audio preamp. Never even seen one on Ebay and there was only one for sale on Audiogon. I was considering Classe, Aragon and others.

The BV Audio P10 is still being made in Quincy, MA and retails for almost $2,200. Not that it's that expensive compared to others. The guy selling it, was replacing it with an $8K Conrad Johnson and he told me that it took a lot of listening to convince him to get the CJ. He had a three day guarantee and the pre-amp supported all my requirements. He promised that it would knock my socks off, so I purchased the amp. He's had a lot of experience and has owned a lot of equipment, so I took his word for it.

The P10 has some very cool features. No volume pot or attenuator. The volume is handled through a CPU, so you'll never have 'dirty pot' noise or wearing out of the volume pot and you get better channel separation. There are over 200 steps to the volume, so you can get the 'exact' volume you want. The relays are gold in sealed nitrogen gas units, so you'll never have dirty relays. The phono section uses Burr Brown and Analog Device chips for the A/D conversion and is MM/MC adjustable. All the other inputs are adjustable for gain through the remote control, so you can balance the gain between the different inputs. It's main tenet is that it's supposed to be as transparent as possible. Another reason I purchased it was the lack of used units. This was the first one I had ever seen in months of cruising Ebay and Audiogon. That meant to me, that the people purchasing them, were keeping them.

The P10 got delivered yesterday afternoon and before I went home, I picked up some Mogami Gold Series XLR cables from 'Guitar Center' and a Monster Cable RCA set for the DAC (an XLR CD player is next on the list). I set it all up, wondering if it was going to be as good as the seller stated. I have not been happy with the system. The old pre-amp was the main weakness. It made me suspect of the L-300's. The old sound wasn't all that great. It could get plenty loud, but the midrange seemed to be dominated by the lower end of the midbass and I sensed a lost of detail in the upper midrange, as well as it 'sitting back'. The bass was a little too boomy for me. I wondered if I was going to have to swap out speakers too. Was a 3-way, not the way to go? Would a 4-way give me the midrange detail I was looking for.

Turned it all on and started listening to well-known tracks. The volume adjustment from the remote control took longer because of the finer steps, but it was nice to set it exactly to where you wanted it and with subtle room to adjust it. The volume didn't jump up sharply, but rather ramped up and downed smoothly. The display was readable from ten feet away.

Now I'm happy. The L-300's weren't to be faulted after all. The upper end of the midrange came back out of hiding, flaunting detail I hadn't heard before. The high's were nicely done and the lower end of the midbass was totally behaving. The lows were tight and clean without sounding boomy. It was an overall balanced sound output that had a very nice transparency to it. There are no 'tone' adjustments and that was fine with me. This is a great pre-amp and I was happy to have shelled out the $700 for it used. If you're looking for a nice preamp that gets along well with MOSFET amps and JBL's, I'd like to recommend this. I'm including a linkee below. Click on the 'technology' area for an interesting animated demonstration. Not a lot of marketing, hype or even reputation, but nobody's selling their's either and I'm not selling mine anytime soon...

http://www.bvaudio.com/p10.htm

Ian Mackenzie
01-11-2007, 01:29 PM
The review at 6moons was good.

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/bvaudio2/p1.html

I think there is a lot to be said for a precision matched volume attenuator.


Ian

Regis
01-11-2007, 01:46 PM
Thanks Ian. The best I've ever experienced as far as mechanical volume devices was the Alps precision potentiometer in the Sansui G-22K, thus I have no experience with the volume attenuator family, but I do understand that they are the choice for the higher-end pre-amps and integrateds.

Saying that, I believe a good audio engineer/designer can use digital technology with a very clean and uncolored format both in and out of the unit and I think that's what BV Audio is trying to do.

The review you kindly provided says it best "The P-1 got out of the way of the music, subtracting its own presence by leaving no additive traces."

"Through the P-1, the sharp string attacks of the Berlin Philharmonic were well defined without sounding hard. Like the bass guitar in Jaco's recording, the celli didn't have any fat on them but the tone of the instruments still rang true. The opening of the second movement includes the descending lines of plucked double basses. The P-1 rendered this with proper weight and emphasis. The music flowed and I was carried along with it.

The drawback to this neutrality? Unless a component added a little spice to the mix, the music can sound a bit flat. I was hearing everything without being overwhelmed by detail; yet the presentation was a little too cool."

Fortunately, the combination of a good quality "warm" MOSFET amp and the inherent qualities of the L-300's make it a pretty pleasurable listening experience (so far).

By the way, sorry about your back! Mine has been tweaked for three weeks with lower back muscle spasms (don't attempt to put a case of bottled water in the back of your girlfriends Corvette without help).

Regis
01-11-2007, 01:51 PM
jblnut, I believe you have to look at the design intent between the late 80's/early 90's Sony and the BV Audio P10.

I think the Vintage Knob website sums it up best.

http://www.thevintageknob.org/SONY/sonyes/TAE1000ESD/TAE1000ESD.html

TA-E1000ESD
(1989 - 1991+)
A true landmark and one of Sony's biggest bestsellers.
Excellents DACs, a highly versatile EQ, a large and useful dot-matrix display, inputs aplenty and even a MIX function! We're used to all this nowadays - but this was 1989! And all this through TWO chips only!
Of course, every analog signal gets converted to digital so as to benefit from the numerous "sound fields" - digitalia still was fairly new, exciting, and Home Theater wasn't yet trying to replace traditional 2-CH audio...

The BV philosophy is to keep it totally clean and the 6moons review and my experience seem to substantiate that fact. It is somewhat spooky and weird to listen to my system and have the music coming out dead even from highs to lows, with no coloration or emphasis on any of the frequencies. There is no BV sound signature. What comes out of the CD player is what's going to your speakers through your amp(s).

jblnut
01-11-2007, 06:32 PM
No doubt it sounds light years ahead of a late 80's Sony AV preamp. Yet I still wonder if I'm reading their website correctly. It looks a lot like everything is going through a DAC. I must be mistaken - surely they would provide digital ins for CD players if this was the case.


Glad you like it - I will keep an eye out one of these myself....

jblnut


jblnut, I believe you have to look at the design intent between the late 80's/early 90's Sony and the BV Audio P10.

I think the Vintage Knob website sums it up best.

http://www.thevintageknob.org/SONY/sonyes/TAE1000ESD/TAE1000ESD.html

TA-E1000ESD
(1989 - 1991+)
A true landmark and one of Sony's biggest bestsellers.
Excellents DACs, a highly versatile EQ, a large and useful dot-matrix display, inputs aplenty and even a MIX function! We're used to all this nowadays - but this was 1989! And all this through TWO chips only!
Of course, every analog signal gets converted to digital so as to benefit from the numerous "sound fields" - digitalia still was fairly new, exciting, and Home Theater wasn't yet trying to replace traditional 2-CH audio...

The BV philosophy is to keep it totally clean and the 6moons review and my experience seem to substantiate that fact. It is somewhat spooky and weird to listen to my system and have the music coming out dead even from highs to lows, with no coloration or emphasis on any of the frequencies. There is no BV sound signature. What comes out of the CD player is what's going to your speakers through your amp(s).

Ian Mackenzie
01-11-2007, 07:32 PM
No doubt it sounds light years ahead of a late 80's Sony AV preamp. Yet I still wonder if I'm reading their website correctly. It looks a lot like everything is going through a DAC. I must be mistaken - surely they would provide digital ins for CD players if this was the case.


Glad you like it - I will keep an eye out one of these myself....

jblnut

Perhaps the manufacturer can advise in more specific terms.

What caught my eye in the review was what they were saying about neutrality. This has been my experience with a recent digital acquisition recent (Lavry DA10 DAC). I think the leading edge is getting to the stage where they don't need to make excuses and soften and buff up the sound to cover up the strident nature of digital of yesterday..at least in the better end of semi pro / consumer stuff. Perhaps its just that the price point of affordable "good" digital conversion is coming down. The pro end is still up in the strata-sphere $10K+ for reference level stuff that use discrete D/A convertors rather than the super D/A chips from BB, AD and Crystal which are starting to get right up there.

The flip side is that if your favourite disk now sounds plain Jane or flat then that is how it is! Same problem with the classic professional series JBL monitors .....clinical under certain conditions.

The drawback to this neutrality? Unless a component added a little spice to the mix, the music can sound a bit flat. I was hearing everything without being overwhelmed by detail; yet the presentation was a little too cool."

Fortunately, the combination of a good quality "warm" MOSFET amp and the inherent qualities of the L-300's make it a pretty pleasurable listening experience (so far).

Agreed, unless your room is warm or damped as opposed to cold or live the result could be icy and clinical.


This could be the answer...again not cheap.

http://www.cranesong.com/hedd192.html

Regis
01-15-2007, 09:48 AM
Hi guys,

jblnut, I listened extensively to the system this weekend. I had on a super-clean mastered smooth jazz CD, specifically, Josh Redman and the purity of the solo saxophone sections is unbelievable. Josh will playfully run up the sax up the scale and then suddenly 'burp' it down to the lows of that instrument. It's like the performer is right there playing the instrument, as you can feel the 'burp' down to the low frequency, it almost sounded like 'sax flatulance' as you could feel the bleat! Dead quiet between notes and very realistically natural. Probably the best that my system has ever sounded. Regarding the inputs, the BV Audio preamp indeed, does not offer a digital input, but it does offer XLR inputs, as I believe they would rather have you do your D/A conversion through a DAC and transport or a really good player.

Ian, thanks for your thought's on the digital side of the house. I know the analog side has long held sway, especially with the quality of the precision attenuators that has gone into and still is incorporated into a lot of the premier equipment out there. I agree with you that the digital is increasingly going to become the norm. If you look at the technology all around us, the resolution, acuracy, control and speed get better and better. I now believe that you can get audio purity through digital both in and out. After posting my reply to you last week (I was off last Friday, so I'm only seeing this reply today), I noticed that the 6moon review on the older (but similiar) BV Audio P1 was done on speakers that weren't full range

Regis
01-15-2007, 10:28 AM
PS.

Ian, I checked out the Cranesong processor. That is a very interesting unit, in that it reproduces a tube preamp digitally, with your choice of 'pentode' or 'triode' output or even 'tape'!. Truly, this is an 'effects' type of processor for those looking for a particular sound. It is intriguing and I'd be curious as to how they 'warm' up an output. :D It'd sure save the user the trouble (or pleasure?) of 'rolling tubes':p

Robh3606
01-15-2007, 10:46 AM
Take a look at the review.

http://www.cranesong.com/downloads/1595_Crane%20Song.pdf

Rob:)

Ian Mackenzie
01-15-2007, 12:47 PM
Hi Regis,

Enjoy your new preamp.

Yes the Cranesong is an interesting device. If you had an Aphex Exciter it may provide a similar result for less $$. I think the valves help cold digital sound, my old Luxman 105U had tubes. Perhaps this is why tubes have made a cameback in the me too analogue consumer CD camp.