The audible illusions L-1 linestage was purchased from art ferris the owner of audible illiusions who are now located in ormond beach florida a postal money order for 750.00 was sent to art on nov 3rd 2009 and i was supposed to get a rebuilt m3a, which i was told by art that it would be ready to ship in 3 days. this is where things took a turn for the worse. my m3a did not arrive as was promised i called art and was told he was waiting on parts, well to make a long story short after about 75 phone calls to art and countless escuses of all sorts and 5 months later i relented and agreed to have him send me a rebuilt L-1 linestage that took another 3 weeks to arrive. in mike fremers1996 m3a review in stereophile he stated that you should not send money in advance for a preamp to be shipped to you that was 1996 well that still holds true as of march 2010.after the preamp arrived i went through a 1 month brake in period. i was ready for some serious listening. the first thing i noticed was that this thing is very bright almost harsh on the top end. and very cool and clinical sounding not to my liking at all.in all honesty i think my opinion is somewhat jaded on this piece . it has been sold and replaced by an audio research LS-16 which is light years ahead of L-1 . exercise caution in your dealings with MR ART FERRIS

Large soundstage. Very natural sound. Gives the music a presence that was not there before. Great detail with out being harsh. Lots of bass.

None that I can think of.

I must say that I am very pleased with this preamp. It gives music a presence that makes it seem alive. The soundstage is very big and deep with 3 dimensional imaging. A number of CD's in my collection I could not listen to and was about to throw away because they had too much glare and were too harsh. Now I am going to keep them and they all sound much better. There is a lot of detail. This detail is in all frequency ranges - high as well as low. You also get the sence of many individual instruments playing. You can actually pick out the instruments as they play. I actually was so pleased with what I heard that I must confess that I decided to split my system into a music and a home theater system and went out and bought VTL Tiny Triodes(2001) to pair with it. I really recommend this preamp if you want very high quality sound !!!!

Similar Products Used:

VTL2.5 ;Audio Research SP-6,SP-8;MapleTree Octal 6

Warmth, better 'sound stage', better, more natural lows. Simple to set up.

It would be nice to have better lighting on the knobs/dials, they are a little hard to read in low light situations. Mine is installed in a closet, I had to install a small light to see what I was doing.

I purchased used for $619. My first foray into Tube gear. I was amazed. A notable difference in lows & sound stage. It sound more "natural" Voices sound like voices, instruments like instuments. I use a simple Sony JukeBox for CD's and use an Old JBL Metregon for speakers alternating with a newer set of Platium Audio Speakers. Amp is Adcom 555.

Similar Products Used:

Adcom products, Rotel Products.

sound very open and smooth just a wonderful sound

none

The baby brother tho the 3a. A wonderful sounding amp and all i can say is to hear one if you come across on it is amazing

Able to adjust the gains to the tube; Dynamics can be adjusted

Very dependent on the tubes used

This is a tube pre-amplifier that sounds like a transistor one with all the virtues of a tube amp (minus all the evils of valves), The best of both worlds. And the gain control to the valves allows for "fine-tuning" the dynamics. On dull recordings, increase the gain to spice up things abit(thus becoming more punchy) , and vice-versa. I am using ProAc Studio 150 which is excellent in stereo-imaging but tends to be slightly on the bright side. By lowering the gain control to the tubes, the the brightness is controlled.

The built of this pre-amp is really first class! Open it up and see to believe.

This pre-amp is an great partner for my transistor power amp, McCormack DNA-1 Deluxe. It is excellent in midrange but its specialty is really in the stereo-imaging department. Off the lights and you will be transported to the recording studio.

One caution about this pre-amp is that it is really fussy on the tubes it uses. On other pre-amps, the difference is not as noticeable as in this one. Originally I had Sovtek tubes but had discarded them becos they sound really thin, piercing and closed-in... It's hard to describe the disappointment I had when I first brought it home. I wanted to sell it off within one week of purchase!!!! And then I tried with other tubes....and hell, WAS THERE A BIG DIFFERENCE!!!! The tubes that I find most suited to this pre-amp is the Amperex Bugle-Boy, Telefunkhens and the EI tubes. A more economical way is to "play" with different tubes rather than investing on new equipment, since this is a damn good pre-amp already! Never dare to experiment with Sovteks again though.

Similar Products Used:

Copland CSA8, AudioLab 8000A, Audio Research SP9MKII

Build and smooth

One of the best preamp I have ever used And I used many. Smooth and detailed. Caution very particular of tubes used I bought replacment sovtecks (junk noisy ) go to tubeworld.com he will take care of you I bought some amprex a little pricy but worth every penny about 140$ a pair it open this preamp to a new level and music comes out of blackness. awsome

Transparent, huge sound stage, perfect bass, mids and high-end. Very natural sound.

NONE, this thing is perfect!! Oh, sorry, you'll have to replace tubes every few years and there are only 2!!

This is the perfect pre-amp. Why? Cause it sound like a $15,000 pre-amp but only costs about $1500 (price may be higher now).

Really, it is transparent, smooth, dynamic, everything is perfect. Mids and highs are beautiful, lows are well defined and natural. This pre-amp sounds so real and natural. It also is a perfect team with solid-state amps. It sounds wonderful with my Aragon 8008. I've also heard it with tube amps and it sounded great.

Because this pre-amp sounds so natural and transparent, it will help you choose better components elsewhere in the system. Be careful, this might mean spending more money on speakers, amps, and CD transports! But isn't that what we audiophiles do?

Similar Products Used:

System Components: Aragon 8008, Parasound Ultra DAC 2000 and belt drive transport, Definitive Tech speakers (looking to upgrad to Alon V's or Audio Physics Virgo's)

very very smooth build is incredible out board power supply a steal for the quality you receive.

none that I could find

I had all of my peices in place good amp,cd player and speakers only thing missing was a preamp and boy did I hit the jackpot. The L1 is the most beautiful sounding preamp I ever used and I tried many. If you can find one of these and test it DO SO you wont be dissapointed.please try to use the nos type tubes in the unit. If you put junk tubes in the preamp does't like it. one place is upscale audio in CA. The number is (909)931-9686.They will set you up.

Similar Products Used:

forte44,ps audio,quicksilver(blewup after 3 months)

If you are looking for a tube linestage preamp with minimal coloration and detail approaching that of solid-state, this is the one. The build quality of this unit exeeded my expectations, circuit layout and quality are superb. I truly feel that I got more quality than I paid for.

After auditioning several preamps, found this one to have a smooth, silky, and revealing character. It has softened up the highs on my maggies nicely, and provides truly outstanding separation and imaging -- I can easily pinpoint instruments in the soundstage. Tubes briefly exhibit some soft ringing when the mute button is released, but this is nitpicking. The construction is lovely. A steal at a grand (or so).