Flea Bag
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2004
- Posts
- 547
- Likes
- 17
Greetings!
I had three weeks with the Prehead MkI before sending it back, actually due to a fault of my own. Very nice of Jan to allow me to do so. Well, I replaced it with the MkII version
and it arrived just this morning.
It's now 2350hrs here in Perth so I haven't had much time with it but here are some initial impressions:
1. What surprised me was how much brighter the MkI was, despite last hearing it well over a month ago. The MkII has better balance and gives me the impression that it is more forgiving. However, it may also have slightly less air. I'll have to look deeper into this.
2. The amp sounds very stable, powerful and with good instrument separation.
Stable is the word I choose to use because instruments seem to stay very well separated and don't seem to loose their presence when others come to join the party. Depending on the recording, I can close my eyes and visualise the position of the various instruments and effects around me and then pick whichever one I want to listen to. Only on very noisy passages or perhaps due to bad recordings and my so-so DAC do these instruments get 'drowned out'.
3. However, I confess there is a down-side. One that I seemed to have got used to in just a few hours... When I first hear the amp in the morning, I don't think I was used to hearing such severe instrument separation. This resulted in quite a lot of fatigue and I was falling asleep! I did after a few more minutes!
Well I woke up about an hour later and that 'fatigue' issue hasn't repeated itself since.
The other downside which I also quickly got used to was how the amp initially sounded 'empty' but spankingly clean. I think it's due again to the extreme. instrument separation. I've got used to this too.
So, there's nothing left to do but enjoy the music!
I had three weeks with the Prehead MkI before sending it back, actually due to a fault of my own. Very nice of Jan to allow me to do so. Well, I replaced it with the MkII version
1. What surprised me was how much brighter the MkI was, despite last hearing it well over a month ago. The MkII has better balance and gives me the impression that it is more forgiving. However, it may also have slightly less air. I'll have to look deeper into this.
2. The amp sounds very stable, powerful and with good instrument separation.
Stable is the word I choose to use because instruments seem to stay very well separated and don't seem to loose their presence when others come to join the party. Depending on the recording, I can close my eyes and visualise the position of the various instruments and effects around me and then pick whichever one I want to listen to. Only on very noisy passages or perhaps due to bad recordings and my so-so DAC do these instruments get 'drowned out'.
3. However, I confess there is a down-side. One that I seemed to have got used to in just a few hours... When I first hear the amp in the morning, I don't think I was used to hearing such severe instrument separation. This resulted in quite a lot of fatigue and I was falling asleep! I did after a few more minutes!
Well I woke up about an hour later and that 'fatigue' issue hasn't repeated itself since.
The other downside which I also quickly got used to was how the amp initially sounded 'empty' but spankingly clean. I think it's due again to the extreme. instrument separation. I've got used to this too.
So, there's nothing left to do but enjoy the music!