Tube Preamp Reviews

I've been attending the annual Consumer Electronics Show for years, and usually come away with the impression that there are too many "me-too" products. I see a numbing similarity of approach of manufacturers within a chosen discipline: solid-state power amps in black and silver bristling with heatsinks, single-ended triode amps with their glow reflecting from bronze or wood panels, MCPU/DSP-centered devices with sleek, flat cases and intimidating remote controls, etc.

Ideally, through the medium of a synergistically balanced set of high-resolution components, we seek to re-create an acoustic event with a palpable sense of realism—as in timbre, dynamics, room cues, and dimensionality. Have I ever experienced a system commensurate with the experience of sitting 12th-row-center at Carnegie Hall for Boulez conducting Stravinsky? Close, but...

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. 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.

RCA's time-honored 6SN7 may be the coolest tube of all. The octal-based dual-triode has its own Wikipedia entry—something not even the 2A3 or 300B can boast—along with its own websitehttp://www.6SN7.com">website;. The 6SN7 is chunky, rugged, and handsome. Best of all, it's available, probably because people keep coming up with very good uses for it. In that sense, the 6SN7 is the Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup of the tube world.

I had it all wrong. I assumed that the "SLP" in SLP-98P stood for stereo line preamplifier. But Dennis">http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/399">Dennis Had, Cary Audio's founder and chief designer, told me that it actually stands for sweet little preamplifier. In a day and age when acme is a word without meaning and the fighting Irish are neither, this strikes me as a risky marketing gambit—but one that may be effective if the name proves true.

Almost two years ago, Conrad-Johnson's Lew Johnson came to Santa Fe while visiting his western dealers. We were chatting about acquaintances in the industry as I showed him the new house I'd barely moved into when he spread a blueprint across a stack of record boxes and showed me a design for a new product.

If you review hi-fi long enough, you get to the point where you've heard it all before. Actually, there are several versions of that point: One is where you've heard all the claims before, and the other is where you could have sworn you've actually heard this component before.