Justin & Jerry's Hifi Blog

[jandl100]

Four big juicy Ansar Polyprops there

Is that a good thing? I'm pretty much totally clueless when it comes to the techy side of things!

Does it look like decent components have been used?

[MartinT]

Ansars are very good in valve circuits.

[jandl100]

New pre-amp at Jerry Towers!

This fine looking (if slightly scuffed) item arrived yesterday ....



A Restek Consens pre-amp.
A small but reasonably hefty offboard PSU and a very hefty metal remote handset comes with it, too.

I've fancied trying something from this German manufacturer for quite a few years, and with my current obsession with pre-amps I just couldn't resist when it came along on eBay.

1st impressions are very favourable indeed. Very articulate, detailed and dynamic. Precise but not etched. Excellent 3D imaging, too - very focussed and images hang in a very convincing way between and behind the speakers. Real bass wallop! This sounds very "high end" - a sophisticated sound, perhaps a tad brightly lit - certainly not dull & boring! - very enjoyable so far. And this pre allows my power amp to be fed with balanced cables, which it definitely seems to prefer.
Very pleased.

[The Grand Wazoo]

I heard a Challenger integrated and some pricey pre/power amps some years ago & was very impressed with them.

[nat8808]

New pre-amp at Jerry Towers!

This fine looking (if slightly scuffed) item arrived yesterday ....



A Restek Consens pre-amp.
A small but reasonably hefty offboard PSU and a very hefty metal remote handset comes with it, too.

I've fancied trying something from this German manufacturer for quite a few years, and with my current obsession with pre-amps I just couldn't resist when it came along on eBay.

1st impressions are very favourable indeed. Very articulate, detailed and dynamic. Precise but not etched. Excellent 3D imaging, too - very focussed and images hang in a very convincing way between and behind the speakers. Real bass wallop! This sounds very "high end" - a sophisticated sound, perhaps a tad brightly lit - certainly not dull & boring! - very enjoyable so far. And this pre allows my power amp to be fed with balanced cables, which it definitely seems to prefer.
Very pleased.

I was interested in that - not to buy mind you as I have no money atm and a few pre's to throw into the gladiator ring to battle out already. Looked an interesting design with its blue display and remote control.

what are your thoughts on it after a few days?

[jandl100]

Hi Nat.

Yup, I like the Restek a lot. It's currently doing the biz in my system and the pre-amp boxswap bug has abated for now. I've been through quite a number over the last 2 years or so. I guess the best of them have been the Krell KRC-3, Morgan Audio 500 valve pre, MF A1 FBP and this Restek.

Others have included Bent Audio NOH TVC, XTC Pre-1, Cyrus vs, NuForce P8, Audiolab 8000Q, Acurus RL11. The Cyrus and the Audiolab were a bit naff, tbh, -- the Cyrus being quite a low-rez and smoothed over device and the Audiolab being a bit forward, thin and unsophisticated; a dynamic clean sound, though -- but the others were all to a high standard, imo, they just didn't gell that well in the context of my system/taste.

The Restek does the music thing very well - subtle but with balls and hi-rez as well. And the imaging really is good, too, with the music just hanging naturally between and behind the speakers in a very convincing fashion.
And the dang thing has a Mono facility - that's really useful for some solo piano recordings especially, where you sometimes seem to be sitting inside the piano itself on some recordings with a 30 foot wide piano, and others where the L/R balance is skewed or wanders around. It would be nice if it had a balance control, like the Krell did, but hey I guess you can't have everything!

I'm having a meet-up at MartinT's place this weekend with Marco, as Martin is curious as to how my Parasound A21 power amp would sound in his system. I'll take the Restek pre along as well.

I'm certainly now curious about trying other Restek kit and I'll be keeping my eyes open ....
I've read that Trigon are the new Restek. Although the Restek brand seems to be up and going again. -- I'm not really sure what is going on there!

[jandl100]

Ha ha !!!! -- it's "irritate the purists" time again at Jerry Towers.

Thanks to falcoron I now have a Behringer digital equaliser hooked up between my secondary sources and the Restek pre-amp.
So that's turntable, cassette, minidisc and VHS player can all now benefit from superb tone controls, stereo width adjustment, L/R balance.

Perfecto Mundo !!

[julesd68]

Thanks to falcoron I now have a Behringer digital equaliser hooked up between my secondary sources and the Restek pre-amp.

I think that's a flogging offence Jerry!

[wiicrackpot]

I think that's a flogging offence Jerry!

Very nice Jerry, tell me this, what exactly does these Behringer Eq things do?, for example can it do the work of the crossover in a speaker say for smoothing out the shouty mid or zingy hf energy from some horn speakers?, if it's so can you just bypass the speaker crossovers.

Together with a valve buffer, thats the two most puzzling things for me.

[jandl100]

Ooo - yeah!! Spanky time.

Very nice Jerry, tell me this, what exactly does these Behringer Eq things do?, for example can it do the work of the crossover in a speaker say for smoothing out the shoutyness of mid/hf from some horn speakers?, if it's so can you just bypass the speaker crossovers.

Together with a valve buffer, thats the two most puzzling things for me.

Behringer do kit that is better suited to the x-over application than the DEQ2496.

The DEQ2496 I have is basically a glorified and very flexible tone control, with less precise control over x-over points and rates of attenuation etc.
--- at least, I think it has. I've never tried to use it in that role. Ron tried to use it in his OB speaker DIY project, and failed - which is why he sold it to me. I just want to use it for the reasons already specified .... viz. tonal manipulation, stereo width, L/R balance.