Well, you have to try something for nothing don't you? After all it would be rude not to, firstly l would like to say that Alan (Firebottle) has been a perfect gent through this little adventure, anyway you want to know how it sounds right?

First impressions of the courier box was one of a good impression, nicely packed! The unit is very well made and plugging it in and setting up was straight forward enough.

Cartridges used;

Stanton 500 ( original)

Stanton V500 (l believe)

Denon DL103 (ORTOFON T5 Step-ups used here)


The unit sounds good straight out of the box and does get slightly more refined ( more on this word later) as the unit warms up, the casing gets warm.
There is plenty of gain on offer here, with just a little tube noise if you put your ear on the speaker cloth, but all of my T-amps are very quiet so this was expected.

Right, cutting to the chase the unit is very refined, open, musical with awesome bass performance and very dynamic which is refined(that word again) an enjoyable all day listen if you ask me,all the above points are important to me,so l really enjoyed my time with the Firebottle pre, the only phono stage l had to compare it with was my trusty CA 640P ( Hi Jerry) the Firebottle was an improvement over this in all areas. Special mention again to the bass performance and how the unit unravelled instruments in the sound stage, all in all a good little pre!


For;Dynamic, full, musical, refined and and good bass performance.

Plenty of gain.


Well built.


Against; Nothing really- possibly may be too refined for some.



Oops nearly forgot mucked about with power cords and these changed the sound a fair bit, both the MG2.5DPS and Nordost Shiva ( hi David)) sounded good.


Whilst typing this have been listening to Pink Floyd's Echoes and Hergest Ridge two of my favourite albums really enjoying them so it is all good!