I used this preamp for a number years. It had a very nice sound quality. It excelled in rhythm, musicality with pleasant and natural high frequencies and solid bass. In comparison to my old BAT VK-5 it was less bright with better imaging and rhythm, but smaller soundstage. The L5AE was an excellent mate to the Boulder 500AE - makes sense given they where designed to be used together. It's certainly one of the best preamps I've owned ... at a certain performance level, it's really just a matter of taste as to what suits you and you're current system.

The build quality is excellent, as is typical of Boulder products. It has balanced and single ended outputs and phase switches on the back for the balanced inputs and outputs. It has a balance control, and tape out.