Tripping Billy

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
Less than 1 month

Price Paid:  $550.00 from Web

Summary:
Awesome. Transparent, yet dynamic.

Works well in front of tubes.

Strengths:
Clear, ariticulate, full and lifelike sounding

turns volume down when put into standby

Weaknesses:
power/stanby button a bit weak.

front foot a bit odd looking - maybe should have 2 in the front and 1 in the back. its probably for good reason.

remote hard to find.

Similar Products Used:
Bryston BP25
Rotel RA-01

dpl35

Overall Rating
 1 of 5

Value Rating
 1 of 5

Used product for
Less than 1 month

Price Paid:  $575.00

Summary:
I have to say that I was very disappointed with the Audio Refinement Pre-5. I thought the build quilaity was horrible, very cheap. The volume and selector knobs seemed loose. The sound was less than stellar, I felt it was thin sounding.
I owned it for a week, and then sold it.

Strengths:
NONE

Weaknesses:
Poor build quality
thin sounding

Similar Products Used:
Unico Research integrated amp
Juicy Music pre amp
Carver C-2 preamp
Sunfire TG3 processor

jwh2323

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
Less than 1 month

Price Paid:  $475.00 from audiogon

Summary:
I'll try to keep this short. Oustanding preamp. Have been listening to it for three weeks now and it has been an absolute breath of fresh air. I had to downgrade my system from surround to two channel because of space. I use a parasound halo a51 to bi-amp NHT Evoluition T5 towers. I had an ultra-highclass processor that I had to sell on ebay, and the pre5, to be honest, shines. And I mean it shines. Instruments image, and images are solid across the soundstage with wonderful depth on music and movies. I spin lps - music hall mmf 5, top level goldring cart, with a cambridge audio 640p pre - and this thing is great for records, and because it's gain is so solid it's an excellent pre amp for quiet recordings and quiet on-line stuff (like Heroes at NBC.com). Detail, detail, detail, but the overall sound is not fatiguing. Powerful too: tall images, excellent bass, and outstanding mid and high clarity. No hash and no buzz and very quiet. On movies, like Howl's Moving Castle, when you're inside Howl's castle the detail and layer of sound is intoxicating. It would be great if it had a good phono stage, but come on. At this price? And I have the option to re-upgrade one day to 5.1 surround. Lastly, it's quite handsome and elegant, and the add-on remote is handy. This is an oustanding audiophile preamp for a budget price. I love it and will be depending on this one for a long time.

Strengths:
Cost, simplicity of circuit design, strong gain without distortion, awesome soundstage and imagery, exciting sound and invigorating detail. Love it's simplicity, and yes it goes without a digital face but it also darkens up the room, right?

Weaknesses:
No phono stage. No treble/bass controls. Wish remote had individual source buttons rather than just the arrows that you push to get to the correct source.

goose

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Price Paid:  $560.00 from audiogon

Summary:
Other have covered the virtues of this pre-amp quite well, so I am mainly writing this review to answer some questions raised in the weaknesses section of the last review. 1. The pre-amp does have separate 5.1 and stereo outputs, but the stereo and front outs are the same, at least with a multi-channel source, so you can connect to either. I have not verified this for a stereo source, but at the very least you should be able to connect your fronts to the stereo outs and not have to swap any cables to go from stereo to multi-channel listening. 2. The pre-amp does have a relatively high gain, but I just turned down the input sensitivity of my power amp to compensate. You should do this anyway, as attenuating at the power amp is better than attenuating at the pre-amp (i.e., lowering the volume control): in the former case losses between the pre-amp and the power amp are less significant, as a larger signal is present.

Strengths:
Great looks and build quality. Great sound.

Weaknesses:
Remote is an extra-cost option.

Similar Products Used:
Nothing terribly similar, just a 12-year-old NAD 1000 stereo pre-amp.

amperidian

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
2.00 of 5, 1.00 votes

Price Paid:  $700.00 from audiogon

Summary:
Great preamp for the money, worth every penny. This preamp needs a good amp to show what it can do. Very musical sounding, perhaps not as silky smooth as a YBA/Nagra but smooth nevertheless, detailed, slightly forward presentation, crystal clear highs, non-fatiguing sound, handles all frequencies well - including LFE, just get full range speakers with good interconnects and speaker cables and a good source and you'll hear for yourself what this baby can do. This preamp has a VERY precise soundstage, the size/depth/height depends on what speakers you own and how you position/tweak them(electrostatics sound breath-taking with this preamp ... one word: NATURAL). Very AIRY, if such a word can describe it, and TRANSPARENT, especially with electrostatics (just get some that can go to 40Hz linearly) and you won't even know where they are in the room. To get the most out of it you have to tweak it a little. An aftermarket powercord improves bass control and brings the mids to life. It also sounds more natural. Ceramic feet will help control the noise floor (I will try putting it on a granite plate one day) but the stock feet will serve you well if placed on a rigid surface (wood/granite). Use good interconnects, this preamp will reflect the various qualities of your cables. It does not do well with Tara Labs cables, in fact it highlights their sloppy and overemphasized bass together with a somewhat dry midrange. I found Audioqest King Cobras work well but my Monster Sigma Retro Gold are better both in the highs as well as lows (very close here, the Cobras actually have very clean and fast bass and so are an excellent cable for the money). I've heard a lot of people saying that the separates sound better than the integrated amp in this series. Not to my knowledge, I own them both! Upgraded powercords on both to Audioquest NRG-3 as well as an upgrade to ceramic feet. Difference ... SPL levels for sure, less brightness at high levels with the separates, but sonically the same signature. Both are very musical. I recently heard that the YBA2 preamp sounds much better than this one even with the Multi-2 amp form this series. When I hear that setup I will post another review. For now I've gotten over the upgrade bug and am VERY happy. Never said anything about movies. Sorry. Absolutely knocks every receiver on the market off the block. Good soundstage depth (soooo important in movies, much more so than power), height, width, imaging is dead on, go audition one and hear for yourself. For this money I have never heard something that combines so many musical attributes with the flexibility of being able to enjoy full analog 5.1 channel playback as well as music through only 2 of those 5 channels. Go audition one.

Strengths:
all listed above

Weaknesses:
this preamp has separate outputs for 5.1 analog out and for 2 channel analog out. What happens if I want to run an analog 5.1 DVD setup in parallel with another 2 channel analog source, like a Cd/Tape player? I keep having to switch the interconnects going to my amp from one output to the other, and I think that's silly, the two circuits are totally separate, which is nice if you use a DVD/CD/SACD player as your only source, but otherwise?... anyone figure out a way out of this? Also the gain is very high on this preamp, thus small changes in the clock of the volume dial have significant volume alterations. I find this makes it more difficult to fine-tune the volume when I just want some music before bed, just nice and quiet and relaxing. Using the remote actually results in changes in volume that I find too great (maybe I need a less powerfull amp than the 125 wpc of the Multi-5 by AR). The overall sonic benefits of this pre make the above inconveniences barely noticeable.

Similar Products Used:
this little preamp has more detail than Bryston's BP25 and costs less than half the money, is far more musical than Krell's KAV series at more than 4 times the price, beats Rotel's pre/pro for musicality, sounds sweeter than any Arcam/Creek out there, will convince any Denon/Marantz/HK/Yamaha/Integra owner that you can get at least as much if not more for less money. Only pre/pro that I liked a lot as well and considered it a good deal for the money was Anthem's AVM 30, but at 4.5 times the price it has to offer some pretty nice options (full XLR multichannel inputs, video processing, 7.1 sound processing, 7 channel stereo, all in a very laid back presentation, very pleasing to the ear indeed but it also costs considerably more).