I have tried a few DIY LDR preamps. They all suited my systems at the time very well.
I cannot for the life of me remember why I sold them.
I have one of those I loaned it to Dom. Good isn’t it.
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That Ed Schilling seems a very down to earth bloke as well 
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£350 is cheap mine cost me £800 new plus p & p from the States.
Been using these Tribute autoformers for over a week now.I really was not expecting them to be as good as my active pre but they are.Need to find a nice enclosure for them.
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I’ve never really been that bothered for remotes, more nice to have than a deal breaker.
The bigger issue is the non linear volume adjustment and the sensitivity once you reach the point about 7 o clock where sound starts being audible.
Tribute are seriously high quality iron … a shame that he no longer winds for new orders
Dave Slagel (Intact Audo) is now your best bet.
He wound all the interstage and output transformers for my power amps and the inductors for my phonostage
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A vote from me as well - Coco San SUT and BTJ phono both have silver Slagle windings and the Preda TBSP has his autoformers
Interesting one, there are measurists that say that there will always be some (possibly euphonic) distortion inherent in an LDR design no matter how good.
But then I have a valve preamp, so hey.
He does if you ask nicely he has just done these for me.
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I’ve thrown a fair variety of music at the ‘The Truth’ today and whilst I’m still harbouring a nagging doubt about something I can’t quite put my finger on, I’ll be damned if the thing hasn’t gotten better since I first plugged it in on Saturday.
Head scratch inducing and quite fabulous sounding at the same time!
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I’d heard some good things about it but mainly read those on the Transcendent Sound forum where Ed is a member, good to hear this from you where I know you’ll be brutally honest and have had some tasty kit!
I have some other bits to deal with before a pre but it’s on the list now I think 
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In which case I feel compelled to include some comments about the potential downsides.
The volume control is not conventional, and you might have already read about this. In my system where its plugged into a Pass power amp and then 104db horns, the amount of adjustment between nothing and really fucking loud isn’t all that generous. But it isn’t stepped so as long as you’re gentle with the dial then you can find the right listening level. Hel twisted it casually wanting to turn a track up and nearly blew the windows out!
Its shockingly clear and transparent. So any noise coming from your sources is going to get picked up and presented to you, and this might not be something you’ve heard before, and easy to mistake for the preamp itself.
It only has 3 RCA inputs, and also no power switch so its on all the time.
There’s no remote, but I think later ones have (mine is an original T1). WTF the real audible difference is between T1/2/3/4 I really don’t know.
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I didn’t realise there were four versions!
Thanks for the info.
I borrowed one a few years back through Gordan (Anubisgrau) if I recall which did the rounds being loaned to members of WW and PFM. I still felt it shared the characteristic of various passive units ie lacking a bit of energy & life.
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Was this advertised on hifi wigwam remember seeing one on there not so long ago.
It’s moving down the list…
That’s been my experience of other passives like TVCs etc, and pretty system dependent as to what results you can get.
I think that LDR preamps like Stereo Coffee etc are true passives but is the Truth active by virtue of its buffer stage? Anyway, in my set up its definitely not lacking energy and life, far from it.
Yes probably the same one unless there’s more than one.
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