Price Paid:  $1200.00

Summary:
this preamp is a rare find and what price to find something like this today, lived with this for 9 years now and not a problem, this pre has had it heaters on 24/7 for ten years yes ive change the valves once but never had one go pop. please sonic get back to building tube amps.
used with tannoy 15" and yamahas

Strengths:
lovely pre amp top grade parts
off board power supply with gz34 tube
problem free use

Weaknesses:
err err not made any more

Similar Products Used:
trany bits and bobs just can not listen to a trany pre after useing this 2 mins tops

Price Paid:  $800.00 from n/a

Summary:
The Anthem I am using has been hot rodded and for the most part for the better. The cheap Volume pot has been replaced with a click type Attenuator, and more filter caps and a bypassed balance control and a deleted phono switch inside. Do all these changes make the Pre-1 better. I believe the additional Caps and the Volume pot are the most worthwhile. The amount of detail is about what I expect from Sonic Frontiers. Which is to say just great thank you. The midrange and highs are clear and free. Nothing like tubes to avoid the glare and edge of most solid state that would be in this price range. A built in phono stage is a plus, but I have not used it yet. I play jazz,bluegrass,classical, and rock, and I am constantly rewarded with a great performance. The dual pre-outs make bi-wire amplification easy so I may run solid state for the woofer, and tubes for the mids and highs. Very nice indeed.
I may try different tubes to get even better performance, that is including the Rectifier Tube in the power supply. Overall, I am very pleased with the Anthem. Too bad Sonic Frontiers is no more, and that Anthem has gone way of the Home Theater crowd. They really had something special for the Stereo folks out here. V.C.

Strengths:
Isolated Power Supply with tube Rectifier,detailed sound. Very good build quality.

Weaknesses:
No mono switch. But that is it. Volume Control..that is the stock one.

Similar Products Used:
Nad,Conrad Johnson,Rotel...etc.

Price Paid:  $1000.00

Summary:
Great tube preamp. Make sure to use Mullard rectifier tubes. Also, choose of input and phono stage drivers have a BIG influence in the sound of the linestage. I found using RFT 12AT7s in the phono stage give full sounding linestage with Sovteks in the driver stage and 7308s in the linestage.

Strengths:
wide open soundstage, clean, dynamic, tubular liquidity

Weaknesses:
no remote, no headphone jack

Summary:
I recently upgraded from a NAD pre-amp that I thought was pretty good (for the money) with an Anthem Pre-1. I had just replaced my solid state amp with a Counterpoint SA-12. I was pleased with the sound, but was not overly impressed. I knew that my amp was not a world-beater, but was expecting it to sound much better. I was skeptical that a tube pre-amp could substantialy turn my system around, but started looking for an affordable one, anyway. Most tube pre-amps were beyond my budget, but I received a tip to look for an Anthem Pre-1 (which I found on the net). That turned out to be great advice. The Anthem made all the difference in the world to the sound quality of my system. I am very impressed that a pre-amp could make such a huge difference. I'll bet that you would have a hard time finding a tube pre-amp that sounds as good as this one for the money.

Strengths:
Simplicity, great sound

Weaknesses:
Lack of features

Summary:
I've owned this preamp for almost two and a half years and it stills impresses me. When I first heard this after owning an NAD 114, my jaw hit the floor. I obviously never heard what a glimpse of "high end" should sound. My current system is a McCormack DNA 0.5 Deluxe, Rega Planet CD player, Vandersteen 2Ce's. CD interconnects are Nordost Black Nights.
Just recently a friend of mine bought a Classe' CAP-80. I was very impressed with the detail that was lacking in my system. Fortunately, one of my Sovtek 6922 tubes started to make noise, so I decided to upgrade. After doing some research, I decided on the NOS Valvo 6DJ8's. After about 40 hours of burn-in, the Anthem is in another world. The detail is there with a rich mid-range and taught bass. These Valvo's have improved the system so much that I doubt that any inconnect/speaker cable would make the difference. It's as if I purchased a brand new component. Make a note that if you buy any Anthem preamp with Sovtek tubes, replace them immediately. You'll be happy that you did.