Pleary - I also have a 9000ES player and the blue dot 950. One of the reasons I bought the 9000ES was because it's a very good audio player in its own right. Now that I have a projector, I'm also finding out that its has very good video as well (though only in progressive for some reason).

Anyway, I've always found the 950 performance in 2 channel (passthrough or otherwise) to be its achilles heel. The blue dot was a step up but not enough to make the 950 at all competitive with dedicated 2 channel pre's IMO. And as a result I tend not to listen to much music through my system.

However, as Soundhound said, that can be gotten around by getting a decent 2 channel pre and linking it into the system which is exactly what I intend to do. For $500 used, IMO with a little work you can get a 2 channel pre that would outperform $3000 pre/pros for music. And the 950 for HT is excellent.

That said if $3000 was in my budget I'd want to look closer at the Anthem or other units. But given your tastes, you'd probably find the 2 channel even at that price level lacking.

SoundHound - Do you find that the timbral differences through your tube pre on your mains at all distracting? I thought you'd pretty much need to go with a passive or maybe an active with HT bypass?

I'm using and Adcom 750 for 2 channel. It has a processor loop with unity gain which makes it easy to integrate with home theater processor. It may be a little complicated if you have small children or wife that doesn't like having to turn on an additional component. I love the Adcom 750...very clean sound, active or passive mode and absolutley dead quit, no hiss, and no popping when changing sources or activating switches.

i'm currently using an Anthem Pre2L for 2-channel along with the 950. The Anthem has a bypass input for a HT pre/pro which disables all pre-amp features and justs passes the signal through unaltered. Additionally, the bypass is a toggle which can be triggered from a remote. So i set a macro to automatically trigger the bypass off when listening to music, and then back on when finished. It's all done with a single button press on the remote so the system is still useable by anyone.

[This message has been edited by chris3g (edited March 19, 2003).]

This isn't an issue because all channels go through vaccum tube electronics and power amps, even in HT mode. For instance, the surrounds go through an additional tube "warming stage" before going to the tube power amps. It all comes out sounding matched.

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The Soundhound Theater

Anyone else using a seperate 2 channel pre? I'd like to find a list of the pre's with unity gain (HT bypass) so I have some options with used gear.

In addition to the pre-amp...

I'm finding CD playback is improved over a DVD player and probably most $500 CD players by using a leftover PC w/quality sound card like Card Deluxe or RME and exact audio copy software.

The Jukebox capability is awesome as is the 24/96 lp recording. The only issue is getting a quiet PC. PII/400 is plenty.

Soundhound,

Can you recommend an analog pre that would provide a worthwhile improvement over the 950's analog bypass for stereo listening?

Honestly, I've been pretty impressed with the 950/7100/ICBM/2xSub combo for stereo listening (and the quality of the HT playback almost makes me feel guilty), but I guess I can't resist the possibility of bettering the system for a modest sum.

Incidentally, I took your recommendation for stereo subs (2 x powered SVS subs in conjunction with the ICBM), and it's amazing how well they allow the 7100 to drive a rather large, inefficient pair of 6ohm floorstanders (Mirage M3si).

Thanks in advance for the preamp recommendation.

I'm afraid I don't know of any tube preamps I can recommend, not because there aren't any good ones, but because I don't keep up on what is available in the consumer marketplace. The tube preamp I have (and a lot of the other such stuff) I built myself from scratch.

What about having an integrated stereo amp and run analogue line directly to it from CD or DVD player? Then provide a device that allows only one amp will be on at a time.

I would love to try this but need more information from somebody. How does the second pre-amp get hook into the system? Does the pre have to have a line-in and a line out. I was looking at one tube pre and it only had a line in and then a cd, tuner, aux connection. Can somebody make this simple for me.

Thanks