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It looks like Steve's Karma is still very good. It's official, the ZT Pre is killer or as Steve put it "It is going to kick some serious ass"... Oh yeah, very good indeed. Like the CSP3, you have a lot of adjustment of voltage to tailor the sound and "ride the gain." I'm experiencing the best bass ever, and this setup has never been so quiet. I tried to swap in the CSP3, and there was the dreaded buzz back that I have been plagued with. I'm tired of even trying to find the problem, and it's certainly not coming from the CSP3. It's XLRs for me from source to pre to amp. Dead silent and black background.
I have used the CSP3 with the ZMA quite a bit and without direct A/B comparison. As good as the CSP3 is, I still believe the ZT Pre beats it hands down. The remote works very well, small increments are just fine with no change in sound quality. You must read the manual or you'll think the remote is broken, right out of the box.
I have tried several other quality amps with the ZT Pre, all sounding good. But, it likes the ZMA the best. The ZMA + ZT Pre have as much power as the 200 watt AVA Fet 400R going direct to the Oppo that I was using in this setup. I'm getting just as much usable volume but lots more liquid sweetness. There's more slam in the bass region, and when I say more slam, I mean the best bass I've ever heard from my stereo period. I'm in awe of how it controls the bass.
It should be no surprise that these two components have good synergy together. I know from experience that the ZMA sounds amazing by itself without a pre but the two have become one, a truly zen experience. Sometimes an additional component to the chain will subtract from the quality of the sound, but not in this case. They are a match made in Heaven. Time to do some tube rolling. I have (6) Philips PCC88 / 7DJ8 coming from Upscale. Did I mention it is a very expensive pre to tube roll in. I wouldn't doubt that the factory complement of 6N1P-EB tubes sound the best as Steve painstakingly voices his gear. I would love to hear thoughts from some of the other ZT Pre owners.
Components: Zen Mystery Amp ZT preamp Oppo 105D modded Monitor Audio GX300 Gold speakers PS Audio P10 regenerator Acoustic treatments by GIK & Decware Power cables: Triode Wire Labs, PS Audio, Mad Scientist Audio NEO Speaker cables: Synergistic Research Element Tungstun XLR cables are Bob Grost's Cerious Technologies Graphene Extreme
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ZMA, ZTpre, VPI Scout 1.1 & Soundsmith Zepher Cart, Janszen zA2.1 Speakers, PS Audio DSD, Berkeley Audio Alpha USB, PS Audio P10, Win 8 & J River app, Morrow Cables Triode Wire Labs #7 & Lessloss PC, voodoo AES
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