Rogue Audio has introduced a state-of-the-art linestage a few months ago called the Hera. It is a two chassis unit and features four pair of 6H30P vacuum tubes running in parallel.

Just last week we received their newest product, the Athena line stage. The Rogue Audio Athena is a similar design which uses two pair of the 6H30P tubes as dual triodes. The Athena also features an external power supply, which is a scaled down version of that in the Hera and which is packaged similarly to the power supply for their popular 99 preamp.

I have to say that I am amazed by the sound of the Athena preamp and can find little to fault anywhere. Virtually nothing is lacking sonically from my very first listen on! I took a photo of the inside and this is the only photo that you will see anywhere thus far!

The Athena uses a very expensive, motorized stepped attunuator as a volume control. In addition to this feature, it also has a five position gain control switch. So there is a really wide range of gain and level adjustment on tap to nail the best SNR on any system and retaining transparency and optimizing dynamics. Yummy!
-Bill