Promitheus TVC Passive

dreftar

dreftar

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Arrived early last week and out of the box was absolutely amazing! I am more than impressed!!

Smiles from ear to ear as I am compelled to play my entire record collection through.

All types of music seems just so much more musical. Sound stage is massive. Dynamics awesome. The bass response is so good that I have turned off my sub bass and wished I hadn't bought it. A couple of months ago I was considering purchasing super tweeters to assist the top end of my quad ESL 63s - absolutely no need now. THe Promitheus feeds my Monarchy Audio Pro Sm 70s via balanced cable purchased from Nicholas Chua at the same time as the Preamp. The sound is so good that I cant be bothered with an AB of my old cables!!

I can't recommend this Pre Amp highly enough.

Do your ears a favour and have a listen to one.
 
Glad you enjoyed it.

I got mine to work with my Crimsons, before they died.

I didn't really find a weakness with the Prom and didn't quite get the comments about the lack of drive that many people make. However, I think this may be beacuase the Cyrus Aca 7.5 pre it replaced isn't exactly top-notch kit.

At the price I really don't think there can be much to touch it as long as you are patient enough to wait for it to arrive.
 
I got one second hand. Listened and picked it up yesterday.
My thoughts are on my system;
It's quite relaxed - you could listen all day to it and not
get fatigued.
Not the same punch as some SS pre's. This depends
on the source I guess.
I did tube roll from KenRad black tube drviers to Sylivania's settling on National Unions black glass.
Interestingly running my headphone amp off it with both
vol controls at around 12o'clock I got the smoothness
of the TVC and some of the solidstate h/phone amp's
bite.

Still need more time to get a true fix.

Some have used the TVC and then another Pre amp
after that - might give an interesting hybrid effect.

Can't fault it for quietness and lack of hum etc.
 
Good luck with your new toys. Using a preamp after the TVC will negate the benifit of the balanced trannies matching the impedance of the amp. Promitheus makes a Buffer for that purpose however it lacks bass and can be a tad hard sounding overall.
I reccomend a tubed CDP to add tube coloration desired. Antique Sound Labs sells two passives the TX-1DT and TX-2DT for $750 and $1200 that will out perform my Dual Box dual mono "rollo" edtion with ease. Both are in stock [US] and can be bought on the street for 20% less.
I have compared the lessor model to the TVC and it was no contest. The ASL just had more weight and authority you know body and soul baby. The ASL uses Autoformers. ASL makes their own trannies as well. Actually they make trannies for some very well known audio manfs.
Actually hearing the ASL at the Home Entertainment Show perked my interest in TVCs. I bought the TVC because of price, finding out latter that the $750 ASL outperformed the $625 dual mono TVC. Go figure.
So IMO the TVC base model is good for what it is. Cheap. If you like what a TVC can do for your system then by all means try the ASL. Its a no brainer.


rollo
 
My TVC experience is thus;
First impressions were that it was detailed at the mid and top end. Bass was bloomy and not very accurate when compared to my modded pre or that achieved using a simple potential divider straiaht into my tube power amp. I also felt the TVC also lacked a bit of punch.
After some driver tube rolling (from Kenrad black's to NU black's) & (without any logic) I tried some Rothwell attenuators in, from CDP interconnects into the Promiteus.
Now things really came alive the bass and punch was back and yet the clean detail was still there.
My CDP is a clean / detailed / well balanced (to my ears) Copland CDA823.
This set up is an improvement on the Preamp which was an improvement over the potential divider.
The attenuators mean that I am setting the variable switch to 2o'clock instead of about 10 o'clock without.

I can only assume some impedance trickery is going on with the CDP and getting that right helps things out.
Anyone care to comment?

Anyway I am happy with the TVC sound on the music I listen to.
(Acoustic to Goldfrapp and all sorts in between).

Several swap back trials have confirmed this so I'm sold on it for now.
 

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