philtubes Posted May 19, 2007 Share Posted May 19, 2007 Seems like a lot of people on this forum are using the BB Extreme in their systems. What are your impressions and what preamp was displaced by the BB. Thanks in advance for your feedback. Phill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Roland Posted May 19, 2007 Share Posted May 19, 2007 Welcome to the forum. Preamps, eh? Well, I have quite a few. I have several solid state preamps--a GAS Thalia and a Hafler 110. In tube preamps I have a Dynaco PAS 2 with full Curcio mods an Audio Research SP-8 Mk II, and my Blueberry Xtreme. I bought the Blueberry Xtreme because I'm an old dude and I have a lot of vinyl and the Blueberry has a nice phono stage built in. I guess Mark has a lot of vinyl too. Juicy Music has other preamps without phono. If you don't do vinyl, no need for the phono stage. I was encouraged to try a Blueberry because of its fine reputation among many Forum members here. I was not disappointed. The Blueberry is the smoothest most detailed sounding preamp I have owned and listened to with my K-horns. It sounded a little unspectacular to me at first--very smooth but almost too smooth compared to the ARC SP-8. The ARC has way too much gain for the K-Horns though so the sound wasn't as smooth. Once I got used to the BB, I began to notice it had more detail. I could listen deeper into the mix, pick out clearly more voices, timbres, etc. in the music. I am sure there are probably others here who will have other first choices in preamps, but I think, for the money, the BB is a very good value. Mark Deneen hangs around on this forum a lot, and I must say, he is a pleasure to deal with. He answers questions in a straightforward manner, and is attentive to questions from his customers. BTW, another HUGH improvement for me was getting a pair of Welborne SET 300B amps. If you have a chance to try a pair of SET amps, I recommend you give them a listen too. Best, George Roland Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wallflower Posted May 20, 2007 Share Posted May 20, 2007 Mark Deneen makes an excellent product!! And he's a wonderful person to work with.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> I had listened to a forum member's Merlin and decided I liked it enough to take the plunge and get the BBX. The BBX takes the Merlin concept to a whole different level. The sound of the BBX is open, neutral and dynamic. It throws a huge soundstage with tremendous depth and great separation of instruments and voices. The detail is fantastic. I can highly recommend the BlueBerry Xtreme! Jeff Bredthauer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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