Price Paid:  $400.00 from Private

Summary:
This is a great preamp. I had a SP7 about six months ago, which I had bought from a high end store, but I had to return it after about four months since the phono stage was not working properly. I was not happy to let it go, it sounded so good, it does not sound like "HiFi" at all, it takes you a few steps closer to the "Real Musical Event". Soon after I had bought an LS3B, which was good, but after a while, I started to get bored with the LS3B sound and I kept thinking about how good SP-7 was. But as luck would have it, I found one here in Toronto, in really great shape, it looks as if it is about 5/6 years old, but this guy took care of it very well, and I think this is the latest version of SP-7 since it has a mute function as well, the older SP-7 I believe did not have this. It is really heavy built like a tank, five inputs including tape loop and moving magnet phono stage which is simply superb. If you can find one on the used market and if you can compare it to any other preamp, you will keep going back to SP-7.

Strengths:
As I have said, it does not sound like "HiFi" at all, it creats big images, detailed but musically engaging and non-fatigue sound. It has alots of gain as well, which is good. The LS3B, on the other hand, has very open sound, the kind of sound which requires the use of very very high quality sources, to get the best out of LS3B. But with SP-7, that is not the case, I am running SP-7 with Cambridge Audio P500 power amp, Pioneer DV505 CD/DVD player, Linn LP12 w/Ortofon OM20 cartridge, and Nakamichi CR-1A cassette deck. All interconnects are MITerminator 4, 5 and 6, which are not expensive atll. The speakers are JMLab chorus 706. And with all this, it sounds tremendous.

Weaknesses:
I wish it did not have the balance knob and the stereo/mono/reverse/left/right knob. I have no use of these two, not sure why would I want to use any of these. But this is just me, may be some people may want to use these and find very useful.

Similar Products Used:
Audio Research LS3B, Linn Wakonda, MaCormack TLC-1, VTL, Creek, Citation, Yamaha C40.

Price Paid:  $400.00

Summary:
This unit was manufactured between 1981-1988, and still holds it's own with todays best. There are no tone controls,which I think messes up the soundstage anyway,and makes it very painless to control. The phono stage is very represenative, and along with the build quality, and compact styling, make it an excellent buy on the used market.

Strengths:
clarity;build quality;bass response

Weaknesses:
none

Similar Products Used:
Various other AR pre-amps