Tube Preamp Reviews

Just when I thought my equipment reviewing schedule was locked in for many months, an unavoidable last-minute cancellation sent me scrambling for an alternative.

Jim Austin to the rescue. To his query, "How would you like to review a tube preamp from Canor, of Slovakia?" I answered with an enthusiastic "yes!"

In addition to the exciting prospect of reviewing the first tubed preamplifier to come my way in a long time, hearing the Canor Hyperion P1 preamplifier ($12,500) in my system would enable me to get a handle on the sound of gear I'd only encountered once, at High End Munich 2024 (footnote 1). As is often the case at shows, I left without a clear sense of the preamp's contribution to the system's sound, let alone its ultimate potential.

The Canor Hyperion P1's price is far lower than that of my two reference, solid state preamps, the Soulution 727 ($74,975) and the Dan D'Agostino Relentless ($150,000). Because of the huge price discrepancies, this was a review where it only made sense to explore the sound of the gear at hand without comparing it to gear with a heftier price tag.

A brief history
Canor was established in Slovakia in 1995, a mere two years after the separation of Czechoslovakia. Although Canor has designed its own equipment since day one, the Canor brand took a back seat to the company's primary role as an OEM/ODM (Original Equipment Manufacturer/Original Design Manufacturer), anonymously designing and producing equipment for other brands (footnote 2). The company first began to seriously market equipment under the Canor name in 2020. Five years later, Canor products are distributed in at least 30 countries; US distribution is handled by Scott Bierfeldt's New Jersey–based Verdant Audio.

Canor currently employs 80 people, including 15 engineers, and occupies a facility of more than 86,000ft² that includes an anechoic chamber, CNC machines, and equipment for PCB assembly and for anodizing, sandblasting, and brushing metal. Canor launched an enhanced version of its first amplifier, as well as some new lower-level products, at High End Munich 2025.

To learn more, I scheduled a Teams chat with Bierfeldt, Sales and Marketing Director Ivan Bosnovic, and chief engineer/designer Zdenek Brezovjak. Brezovjak is one of the company's three highly engaged owners (footnote 3), all of whom remain with the company after three decades in business.

Most Canor products use tubes. Abetted by their own Aladdin I and Aladdin II tube-testing devices, the company measures multiple tube parameters before assigning an individual ID number to each tube. All tubes are burned in, again on proprietary devices, for 200 hours; this allows them to stabilize before they are measured, selected, and paired. Canor stores all measurements and identifying parameters to enable precise tube matching down the road.

The company applies what they call "Canor PCB Milling Technology" (CMT) to the production of printed circuit boards (PCBs). Bosnovic said, "Our PCB methodology achieves excellent parameters that can be equaled by wire-to-wire connections only by using very expensive high-quality wires with Teflon insulation. However, our new technology has the advantage of repeatability in production, with a 100% identical geometric arrangement, which is not possible with wire-to-wire connections. In addition, our advantage is that the signal paths are several times shorter than it is possible to achieve wire-to-wire."

What it is
The Hyperion P1 is Canor's top-of-the-line, class-A reference tube preamp. Launched in December 2022, it's the intended partner and a good match for the Canor Virtus M1 reference monoblocks ($30,000/pair). Among the Hyperion P1's key selling points are a zero global feedback design that uses four 6922 and two 6H30PI tubes. Its 64-step balanced attenuator adjusts volume in 1dB increments and is galvanically separated from other parts of the preamp via an aluminum box with walls 10mm thick. Antivibration columns support the attenuator and the electronics.

With Bosnovic acting as translator, Brezovjak said that he is a violinist and wind player whose father taught and played cello and bass. His goal, he said, is to create equipment that reproduces the sound of real acoustic instruments making real music in a natural way.

Tube rolling is a popular activity among audiophiles, but Canor's position on the subject is ... nuanced. Bosnovic said that "customers are free to roll the tubes we select, which are predominantly from Electro-Harmonix." He noted, however, that because Canor "precisely burns in, tests, selects, and pairs" the tubes in each unit, the advantages of tube rolling are likely to be "questionable. Ultimately, it's very subjective."

Bierfeldt elaborated. "I have a nice stockpile of expensive tubes, but I have not been able to beat Canor's choices. I've had customers try the same thing. They typically return to the originals and are always a little dumbfounded" that the original tubes do as well as they do. "That's because Canor's tube matching is precise and done only after 200 hours of burn-in, which allows them to stabilize. A really narrow match makes a huge difference."

Bierfeldt expects the tubes in the P1 to last for at least 4000 hours of playback. He'd used the Canor P1 I reviewed almost constantly for three years, and the tubes still measured at 85% of tube life.

How it looks, how it sat
I find the Canor Hyperion P1's design aesthetic, which includes a large, centrally located front-panel volume knob distinguished by a yellow-illumined Canor logo and surrounded by yellow light, visually appealing. I appreciate the large LED input and volume readout on the right of the front panel, the bright horizontal strip that extends across its middle, and the visually balanced location of the push buttons that control power on/standby, input choice illumination, mute, and fixed or variable output. I also like the placement of the top's five air holes and the attractively designed air slots. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but this beholder's eyes were happy to gaze on the illumined P1 each time I entered the music room.

The rear panel is the epitome of neatness and clarity, with four pairs of XLR (balanced) inputs and five pairs of RCA (single-ended) inputs; one pair of each can be set to "FIX.OUT" via that front-panel button. For outputs, the P1 offers two pairs of XLR and one pair RCA. Twelve volt trigger outputs (which I did not use) and a three-prong IEC power inlet with fuse holder complete the picture.

---

Footnote 1: See. Julie Mullins encountered Canor at AXPONA 2022. Robert Schryer heard some of their equipment a month later at Montreal Audio Fest 2022.

Footnote 2: For an introduction to Canor, see youtube.com/watch?v=ibGUSenKbHA.

Footnote 3: Jan Kosco handles mechanical design and finances, and Jozef Curlik oversees production and machinery. All three men have been with the company since its inception.