What am I doing with a vacuum tube preamplifier? I haven't owned a tubed preamp since I bought a Sonic Frontiers Line 3 preamplifier at the turn of the century. I set that aside within a few years as I moved into multichannel because multichannel tube-based electronics were, and still are, rare. My last home experience with a vacuum tube was with a PS Audio Stellar M1200 monoblock power amp, which is a hybrid with a 12AX7-based input stage.

Cécile Mclorin Salvant: Ghost Song
McLorin Salvant, vocals; Sullivan Fortner, piano, Fender Rhodes; Aaron Diehl, piano, pipe organ; Paul Sikivie, Burniss Travis, bass; Alexa Tarantino, flute; Marvin Sewell, guitar; James Chirillo, banjo; Keita Ogawa, percussion; Kyle Poole, drums; Daniel Swenberg, lute, theorbo; Brooklyn Youth Chorus.
Nonesuch (LP, CD). McLorin Salvant, prod.; Todd Whitelock, Patrick Dillet, Chris Muth, engs.
Performance *****
Sonics *****

Starting with her out-of-nowhere triumph at the 2010 Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition and continuing with the release of four albums including three Grammy winners, Cécile McLorin Salvant, still just 32, has been raising eyebrows and neck hairs for a dozen years. She reigns as the supreme jazz singer of our time, ranking among the best of all time. More remarkable, she keeps getting better, and, rarer still, she keeps evolving, expanding her repertoire of styles—which was vast from the start—without losing a wisp of her deep blues, swing, precision, wit, operatic range, or storytelling drama.

I start this review with a confession. I have consistently found that when I play CDs on a transport and feed the digital data via AES3 (AES/EBU) to a D/A processor, the music has more drive, particularly at low frequencies, than it does when I send the same 16/44.1 data to the same D/A processor via my network.

Look closely at the audio system in the photo. It belongs to my friend, and fellow audio seeker, Devon Turnbull (aka Ojas). Notice every object in the room, particularly the arrangement of amplifiers, and turntables, and that awesome herd of cartridges on the table in front of the listening chair.