Allen Wright - The Tube Preamp Cookbook [English] [ ] The Tube Preamp Cookbook - Allen Wright Get into an audio chef's brains Product: The Tube Preamp Cookbook Manufacturer: Approximate price: US$40 (internet sales only) Reviewer: Reviewed: May 2001 As you may know already I feel that a pre-amplifier can be a system's most critical part. And this not only in a turntable system, but even in a digital-only context, where one would be let to believe that a CD player's 2V output simply obviates the need for a preamp. As such I always have been fascinated with pre-amplifiers, and of lately I have been so with the few big and serious valve phono preamps that are around: the Arthur Loesch; our own Thorsten's interpretation of it, the Toccata; and Allen Wright/Vacuum State Electronics' FVP and RTP series. What all of these have in common is that they are essentially DIY components, not even always commercially available, but most certainly always of a non-compromising nature. Recently the Vacuum State (VSE) single-ended FVP5 and balanced RTP preamps have been made available readily-built (and still as kits, of course), which prompted me to poll Allen Wright for a review of the FVP.

No demo sample could be sent at short notice, though it still may happen that both Geoff and me get our hands on an early and reworked prototype FVP5 later this year, also sprach Allen. Install Itunes Linux Mint 16. In the meanwhile, why not read and review a couple of VSE's audio cookbooks? And so I got a Tube Preamp Cookbook (obviously) and a Cable Cookbook (slightly less obvious for those who know me). Behold the word Any fussy mainstream-high-end casualty (you know, the ones with wooden dots on their walls and luxury wooden cable boxes in their luxury wooden closets, a $1000 laser system setup tool and a score of burn-in CDs) would immediately condemn the Cookbook as way overpriced. Indeed, the TPCB is a low-key, low-budget publication (probably the only way to actually have it published at all), made with what seems to be a 1987 word processor and printer, most of the schematics hand-drawn, and enough inconsistency in the layout to be charming. Less charming is the horizontal A4 format: I tend to read my books in bed.