Phono pre-amp decision: tubes vs SS

[Zwick]

The Black Ice tubed output stage DAC is highly rated.

 

[Tmort]

Ok to put a pin on this one, Ruby OCL stylus (via Soundsmith), mounted to Grace F9E cartridge on the Grace 707 tonearm feeding through the black ice audio F159 tube phono preamp is up and running. While the stylus has maybe 15 hours on it and is still breaking in a bit, the results are very impressive I must say! The Grado gold was nice, but the Grace F9 is really another animal, clearly the bass on the Grado was a bit overstated as this is tighter and cleaner, stereo separation is wonderful making for an incredible well defined sound stage. I’m expecting it to only get better as the stylus fully breaks in.