This is a story of the dangers of neutral sound.
I always wanted to have that studio monitor sound.
It would be authentic and totally hifi.

I don't think this is a good idea anymore. I've owned many
speakers that had an interesting but not neutral sound.
I was happy with large Magnepans. The Magnepans
are not studio monitors, but boy they have an airy sound and fantastic sound stage.

Now, when I have the neutral and revealing monitor sound, I can't go back to the interesting but flawed speakers.
At the same time I am fiddling with equipment forever in order to make the neutral sound more interesting.

So avoid monitor speakers, if you are not actually working with sound.

I have been using large ESS AMT Monitors for some time.
They sound like monitors.
I changed my digital setup and bought the Mercedes S-Class of German sound cards, RME Hammerfall HDSP9632.
The RME is great. It has rock solid drivers for all major operating systems.
I use it with J.River and Windows 7.
This sound card is known for it's absolute neutral sound. Well, it was made for professional monitoring.

So now I keep rotating different preamps trying to break out from neutrality. I don't know if the difference between preamps
is real or imaginary.

This is why I have to do a preamp shootout. I am going to play five songs using 5 different preamps.
First adjusting sound level with a db-meter and white noise.

The preamps are not super high end. Some of them are familiar to you:

1. Beresford 7510 / mod21 optical spdif/variable output
2. Quad 33 revised Dada
3. Velleman 8020 valve preamp
4. Eumig C-1000 from Luxman design and factory (late 70's)
5. Harman Kardon HK 3470, just the preamp (early 90's, looks like discrete transistors)

Results soon with pictures of preamps.