A No BS Review of the NBS Peamp by the Illustrious.....

[thebes]

...and august personages of the Gear Vetting Subcommittee of the DC Heritage Society. Said meeting was held at the baronial country estate of the noted Financier, The Grateful GaryMD, presided over by Professor Lawrence Clare,and with note-taking by Bumptious Von Thebes.

Up for consideration was the prototype of the Nosvalves Conglomerate's newest product, the NBS Preamp. Said preamp is a tube rectified tube linestage and phono stage pre with two-step up transformer SUT options for moving coil carts and also offering the ability to load the cart through the use of resistors.

For this review, we examined only the phono stage which utilizes the pricier of the two MC SUT options. Gary's gear utilizes the Nosvalve Conglomerate's VRD's tube amps a Basis turntable with Transfiguration cart, fancy smancy cables and a Vector (?) tonearm, and , of course, Khorns with ALk Jr xovers.

Only the highest quality mastered vinyl recordings covering all musical genres were utilized in our listening test.

While Gary's comments are available elsewhere on the Forum, it should be noted that both Professor Clare and Bumptious VonThebes are very familiar with Gary's setup, which has changed in only one particular in recent years and that's the substitution of the NBS for Mark Deneen's Stunningly enjoyable Blueberry with Cream.

So to the review. The first thing I noticed was a quieter, more black if you will, background. The second, is the greatest improvement over the Blueberry, and that is a surprisingly increase in detail. Third, is while there is no coloration the preamps sound that I could detect, the overall presentation is musical and real. Imaging and depth of soundstage were similar to the Blueberry, but timbres were slightly more pronounced. Speed and pacing seemed spot on, indeed Al DiMeola's famous instrumental with Paco DeLucia, Mediterranean Sundance , was absolutely captivating on both the studio and live versions we played. Bass was well represented and quite fast and tight for a tube system.

The only quibbles I had were a slight sibilance on one or two passage of one recording and my preference for a slight more pronounced midrange. Gary ascribed the occasional sibilance to room issues, and indeed they were greatly reduced from my last visit. He has also de-emphasized the mids slightly at the xover. So in other words, no problems t hat I would associate with the preamp.

In all it's really an impressive piece of audio gear, one I would love to own.

Craig's definitely got a hit on his hands, and I hope many of the readers here will have a chance to experience the NBS on their own.

[LarryC]

This is a remarkable, first-class piece of equipment IMO. Its sound is 100% tube-llike, and brings real-music sound right to the fore. Cellos and bowed double basses in particular have a very full, detailed, profound, and musical and realistic sound quality. Bass passages are clear and detailed right to the bottom. Gary calls the special musical detail "texture" and I think that's an appropriate call.

The unit is remarkably quiet; I understand that Craig spent a lot of time and effort weeding noise out of the NBS, and it shows.

Very important in my view is the very fine cosmetic appearance of the exterior, especially the front panel. Gary's has a dark gray brushed aluminum panel, with a single, subdued power-on blue light (I understand the final panel will be silver colored). The lettering is high-class, and the continuous volume and stepped switch knobs have a rewarding smooth feel. There isn't a bit of DYI to the appearance or function of this preamp, unlike the somewhat thrown-together quality of my otherwise fine Joule Electra preamp.

Those qualities will help maintain resale value and popularity in the general audio market IMHO.

It has one other advantage compared to mine and some others: it's all on one chassis, instead of a separate power supply or phono chassis as you see in CAT, Joule, and other well-regarded pres. Gary's unit includes the optional LOMC inputs, carried off by a pair of highly-regarded transformers inside the unit a la the Blueberry.

We thought there might be some frequency response matters, possibly related to the continued evolution of the ALK, Jr. xovers. I'd be interested in comparing how the NBS sounds to my rather costly Joule LAP-150 -- I think the NBS might give the Joule a run for the money, although switching in and out is difficult at my place.

Thanks to Marty and Gary for bringing out some beautifully selected LPs (NO CD's of course!) of Al Di Meola and Paco de Lucia and others I can't name. Excellent pizza, too!!

Larry

[LeeW]

"(NO CD's of course!)"

How would the NBS Preamp perform as a tubed line stage for the digital aficionados among us?

[Mike Lindsey]

Great reviews guys!! I can't wait for Craig to complete mine!!

Mike

[garymd]

You're going to love it, Mike. We might even make you an honorary member of the Gear Vetting Subcommittee of the DC Heritage Society. Call me sometime and I'll tell you about the annual dues.

[thebes]

"(NO CD's of course!)"



How would the NBS Preamp perform as a tubed line stage for the digital aficionados among us?

That's a very fair question Lee and one I can't answer. Most of our little crown here in DC are all heavy into vinyl and that's how we judge gear. I may be putting words in Gary and Larry's mouths, but I do believe there's a understanding that for whatever reason, building a good phono stage is harder than building a good linestage. On the surface, you'd think it would be easy because it usually a simple circuit to employ the RCAA equalization needed to step the signal path up sufficiently for playback. Except in the case of physically separated phono and linestage pres, I do believe that the phono circuit is often piggybacked off of the linestage. So a bad sounding phono stage probably could mean a bad sounding linestage circuit design.

There's also the fact that Gary does not use a linestage with this setup, but employs it on his other two systems. Thus we didn't play a single cd on Sunday. He has an excellent sounding Sony high-end cd player which I presume he will drop in their at some point, but his focus has been getting the cartridge loading and other vinyl aspects right in order to give accurate feedback to Craig, in what is, after all, the prototype model. I think there may be a demo model going out soon and more information of linestage playback will most certainly follow.

Hope this helps a bit.

Oh, in my review I mean to use the acronym SUT (step-up transformer) but used SUD instead. That has been edited and changed to SUT

[Daddy Dee]

Thebes,

Thanks for the review.

Kudos Craig!

[NOSValves]

"(NO CD's of course!)"

How would the NBS Preamp perform as a tubed line stage for the digital aficionados among us?

. Lee the signal from the phono section is fed to the very same line stage before it heads off to the amplifier as a high level CD source would. If the line stage is fed a quality signal it will sing beautiful music.

[NOSValves]

Marty, Larry and of course Gary,

Thanks very much for giving the preamplifier a listen. All comments sound reasonable to me!!

Craig

[Mike Lindsey]

You're going to love it, Mike. We might even make you an honorary member of the Gear Vetting Subcommittee of the DC Heritage Society. Call me sometime and I'll tell you about the annual dues.

Thanks buddy! Would be honored to be in the Gear Vetting Subcommittee of the DC Heritage Society. Did I say I can't wait for the preamp to be done?! []

Mike

[NOSValves]

A note to interested parties about this product from the designer and manufacturer. It is against the terms of use policy to promote or conduct business openly on this forum. I stated in beggining of the thread that was locked about this product to please contact me for information off forum via Private email craig@nosvalves.com or give me a call at 810-287-6135. Please no PM's via forum software.

We all have to respect the rules of the forum. I'm signing off

Cheers Craig

[Deang]

Larry, I found the following comment interesting, could you please elaborate? Thanks in advance.

"We thought there might be some frequency response matters, possibly related to the continued evolution of the ALK, Jr. xovers."

[Mike Lindsey]

Dean, nice to see you posting. And look, your 18,000th post. Congrats! :-)

Mike

[LarryC]

Just speaking for myself, various of us thought the highs were not as linear as the bass. We discussed whether the cart was nearing the end of its satisfactory-sounding life and past changes in network settings.

[NOSValves]

Larry,

When you use the word Linear what is the meaning of that to you in respect to audio? Do you mean the high frequencies were recessed, forward, irritating or ? Do you have any idea about what frequencies you were hearing this at? Go ahead and be blunt and to the point. After all its about the only form of expression I understand []

Craig

[NOSValves]

Larry, I found the following comment interesting, could you please elaborate? Thanks in advance.

"We thought there might be some frequency response matters, possibly related to the continued evolution of the ALK, Jr. xovers."

Dean I have all my listeners trained to blame your crossovers rather then my gear, neat trick heh! []

[garymd]

Just speaking for myself, various of us thought the highs were not as linear as the bass. We discussed whether the cart was nearing the end of its satisfactory-sounding life and past changes in network settings.

Larry has always commented that cellos aren't as forward on my system as his - or something like that - on particular recordings. I asked him to listen for any instruments that seemed out of character (so to speak) because I honestly can't tell. I love my ALK Jrs! I think we just have very different sounding systems and mine might not be as well suited to classical music as his. I think my highs are satisfactorily linear

[LarryC]

Gary's comment can stand in for mine. We didn't come to firm conclusions about everything, or have the opportunity to control for all factors. We're only talking extreme nit-picky anyway -- it's a terrific preamp, and that I'm glad to stand firm on.

[Deang]

I see. I saw the comment about "the continued evolution" of the ALKJr's and thought that maybe they had been modified. There should be significant sonic differences between Gary's networks and your AK-4's. To hear that the only thing that really stands out is the difference in the presentation of the Cellos is a little surprising. I'm also always fascinated that with so many variables in play, everything from the room, positioning of the loudspeakers, seating position, and gear -- that the networks are more times than not primarily held responsible for things both good and bad.

[NOSValves]

I see. I saw the comment about "the continued evolution" of the ALKJr's and thought that maybe they had been modified. There should be significant sonic differences between Gary's networks and your AK-4's. To hear that the only thing that really stands out is the difference in the presentation of the Cellos is a little surprising. I'm also always fascinated that with so many variables in play, everything from the room, positioning of the loudspeakers, seating position, and gear -- that the networks are more times than not primarily held responsible for things both good and bad.

Dean great response. I feel the same when folks always blame the amp for noise..... in at least 90% of the cases the amp has nothing to do with the noise other then amplifying what has been handed to it via it's RCA jack connection.