Choosing a tube preamp (or dac?) (Space-Tech Lab, Icon Audio, Eastern Electric?)

[ali_x]

I actually posted a thread on this forum a little while ago now asking for help in choosing a good preamp.

I ended up buying an integrated gainclone over e bay and put off buying a preamp for later.


Although a lot of people recommended I should go for a passive preamp I decided that I wanted to go for a tube/valve based model, as ive heard what difference a good tube cd player has had on a friends system.


Ive just bought myself a bi amp (not integrated) version of the gainclone, which should be superior to my current one and so need to get round to buying a preamp to go with it.

Im also planning on buying a dac for my set up and so have'nt ruled out the possibilty of a tube dac.

Does anyone recommend a tube dac in a set up over a tube preamp?.


The particular models im interested in are:

* Space-Tech Lab QA-115
* Space-Tech Lab QA-114
* Icon Audio LA4
* Eastern Electric Minimax


These models are all in the region of £500 to £800, which is ok for my budget. Anything above is a bit of a stretch...


Does anyone have any experience with any of these models and can anyone give any recommendations?


There seems to be a lot of positive feedback and reviews for the minimax in particular, but it is the oldest model of the bunch.

I came accross space tech lab through e bay and they seem to be completely hand built by a chap named Albert who runs the business and has a shop in canada.


I will be grateful for any helpful info or advice anyone has to offer!

Alex.:boogie:

 

[Tenson]

Hi Alex,

I had a Ming Da pre-amp which is similar to the Icon Audio. It was very good for the money and I could not really complain.

 

[ali_x]

The Space-Tech QA-114/115 preamp models both include a switch, which is supposed to have the effect of changing the dynamics of these amps (between normal and fast) and make them more suitable for different types of music in either mode (fast for rock or jazz and normal for vocal or classical for instance).

Im not sure how this can work and thought that good quality hifi equipment should have no need to be switched between different modes or be manually tuned (keeping things simple).

Does anyone think this sounds like a good or bad feature .

 

[Tenson]

It sounds silly

 

[jtc]

Minimax - but then I've already posted this 'cross on PF

 

[larkrise]

Without any doubt if you want an active valve pre - Eklipse (Audio Valve) runs circles round pretty much everything, sent you a pm. Passive - go for a tvc amp.

 

[nando]

icon audio are very good, , i wish t.t. were back, spoke to zia and he is working on new products, nando.