[Flea Bag]

To follow-up on my increased experience with the Prehead MkII:

1. Before burn-in, I thought the MkII had quite a bit less 'air' than the MkI version. Following burn-in, the air has returned, although it is not as 'airy' as I remember in the MkI. Actually to be very honest, the slight improvement in 'air' following burn-in is so slight that I'm willing to accept it could just be my ears adjusting to the amplifier's sonic signature.

2. The amp remains very dynamic and can explode from dead silence to full bang with ease. However, although dynamic can mean excitement, I've found the mid-range of the Prehead MkII to be slightly boring and sterile. Perhaps it's my HD600 but frankly, my Buffered Cmoy has a more 'fun' or 'sweet' mid-range but at the sacrifice of performance in all other areas.

My conclusion is that the instrument separation of the Prehead (perhaps due to its power and speed) has the ability to space instruments very clearly apart and thus, the music looses some of its 'togetherness' or cohesiveness. The whole band has a slight tendency to sound like a group of soloists, each individually minding his/her own business and playing at the same time in a room, rather than a band playing together.

I've recently purchased a Musical Fidelity X-10v3 tube output stage to place between my DAC and the Prehead and it has made things more 'fun' again with the music having more 'cohesiveness'. Perhaps the initial fault was in my DAC and not the amplifier. In either case, anyone got good suggestions for a DAC with a fun midrange? Yet another expensive purchase coming up.

 

[Anders]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flea Bag My conclusion is that the instrument separation of the Prehead (perhaps due to its power and speed) has the ability to space instruments very clearly apart and thus, the music looses some of its 'togetherness' or cohesiveness. The whole band has a slight tendency to sound like a group of soloists, each individually minding his/her own business and playing at the same time in a room, rather than a band playing together.

I had a similar experience when combining it with too bright cables (e.g. silver), also the power cable can have an effect on this. Very good separation and detail but lacking in cohesiveness. With warmer cables the apparant detail decreases, but I doubt that anything is really lost and most seems to be about less accentuation of the edges.
Prehead II can be picky to combine with other components and cables (at least more so for Mk II SE than for Mk I). Partly this can depend on that it is slightly bright, but probably most becase it is very neutral and exposes incoherencies in sound character and problems elsewhere in the chain. It is very revealing and not the forgiving type of amplifier that easily matches with everything (which of course also has some disadvantages).

 

[saint.panda]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flea Bag I've recently purchased a Musical Fidelity X-10v3 tube output stage to place between my DAC and the Prehead and it has made things more 'fun' again with the music having more 'cohesiveness'. Perhaps the initial fault was in my DAC and not the amplifier. In either case, anyone got good suggestions for a DAC with a fun midrange? Yet another expensive purchase coming up.

A tube buffer, this is too cool, I need one of these for the, as you said, "fun" moments.

For a smooth sounding DAC, you could consider a used Bel Canto DAC2: A very nice sounding machine with excellent professional and user reviews. I thought it sounded great. The ack dack allegedly is very smooth as well and slightly cheaper than the DAC2. Perhaps you can also find a used Bel Canto DAC1 but I don't know how much better the DAC2 would be.

 

[jpelg]

Which op-amp was in your MkI?

 

[Flea Bag]

Thanks saint.panda. I've heard about the DACs you described and I'm considering them. The Bel Canto looks horrible though!

The opamp for the MkI was the LM6171 which I know is unforgiving but it still doesn't explain the fact that the MkII is fitted with the exact same opamp and sounds more balanced and less bright.