SEPEA Direct Out cards & Test of tube tape preamps

Our customer Kip has tested outboard tube tape preamps using SEPEA Direct Out cards:

"Bottlehead Tube Repro produced a very pleasant sound, but the more Iistened, the more I realized the sound to be overly ripe. the bass frequencies even appeared to be bit “smeared” compared to the stock electronics of the A80."

"The Dehavilland tape preamp is not as physically attractive as the Bottlehead, but has more facility to adjust the signal. Even so, I felt the high frequencies were a bit too forward with this preamp compared to the stock A80 which seems very neutral and balanced. The bass was tighter than the Bottlehead"

"I spoke with a friend who has tried other tape preamps as well, like the King/Cello, solid-state unit, and the discontinued Manley professional studio tape preamp. he felt my impressions were quite accurate. In fact, he felt the ONLY way to produce a superior sound to the stock electronics of the A80 was to take two steps: First, replace the factory heads with ones from Flux Magnetics, the ensure they are precisely aligned and EQ’ed. Next, invest in the Doshi tube tape preamp, but at $17,900 USD"

"This experiment, all made possible by the installation of Peter Sedlak’s direct-out cards. For me, at least, keeping my Studer A80RC Mk II stock will be the best choice."