Thread: An excelllent preamp

A friend has a really good tube preamp, he uses Coda power for the mid/top section of his speakers, Legacy V. This tube pre is good and quite an improvement over his prior unit.

He brought in a Coda 07x preamp to try. The preamp is small in size, partially due to making circuits as short as possible. It's regular width but slim line, thick face plate. Both XLR and single ended inputs. I believe price around $6500.00.

The 07x had a different presentation but I don't think anyone would deny it was a big improvement. Imaging and soundstage was steller, the 07x had more of an in the room feel than the tube preamp, dynamics were great but delivered in a nonaggressive way. Not slow or overly polite, just not aggressive. The 07x sounded more like tubes than the tube preamp, I mean that in a very positive way, vocals were warm, good presence yet images were solid and control. I was really impressed. Piano notes were tight and clean with good texture, yet when in the musical program hit with force. I forget the performers name, he plays delicate then some notes are so forceful, the Japanese pianist on 3 Blind Mice label, just stunning with this preamp in place.

Coda's most recent amplifiers are on my radar. Terry London reviewed the #8 and ended up buying one. The company is using a new FET output device and noise floor on the new amps are crazy low. They seem to have the Coda goodness I like with tons of current and bass control. A friend of a friend bought an 8 to that replaced his Krell KSA-250, that is saying something to me. Coda also as a monster version the 16.0.

The $6k range may not seem budget for most but the performance of these Coda products has to make them one of the best values out there. The issue with most on this forum may be disbelief you could get this level of performance without spending 5 figures.

Coda has a great reputation. I don’t doubt it’s a wonderful piece. I always wanted to try their amps.

Joe, the new 8 is supposed to be something special. I found out Coda is coming out with an outboard power supply for the 07x preamp, not sure if that change will effect price. They do have an integrated but I don't know much about it.

I have some thinking to do but my finger is on the trigger for an 8, I just have to turn off safety

Have been using a Coda 07x since June. It's used so not sure of the age; remember reading somewhere that improvements were made over the years to the 07x without the model number changing. Bought it because I read it had tube-like qualities without the tube maintenance. Not having owned any tube gear, I can't say how accurate that is, but I do like the sound.

A couple of pics for those who may be curious-