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I've gone full circle over a three year period and am now listening with a new-to-me, circa 1985-ish, cosmetically NM, recently factory serviced SP-11 once again. I am smitten.
Three years ago I had an SP-11 that I sold before purchasing an Aesthetix Calypso Signature. The Calypso is a very fine linestage preamplifier in its own right and is ultra flexible having both balanced and SE inputs and outputs. The SP-11 in my opinion equals the Calypso's sound quality AND affords the user perhaps the most flexible gain control in a preamp that's ever been designed. Offering an infinitely adjustable gain level to feed a power amp or pair of mono amps is a hard thing to live without once you've had a chance to use it. The result of having a variable gain like the SP-11 equates to a preamp that can match and drive most any amplifier.
Paired with both my ARC D-130 amp and/or a pair of Nord One UP mono's (the Nord's are balanced input only so I'm using RCA > XLR cables), the sound is sublime. I've only used the Nord's balanced (with the Calypso) until now, and understand their SE performance should be less than ideal. However, with the variable gain that the SP-11 affords, it drives the pair of Nord's without problem and the Nord's sound every bit as good as when being driven balanced IMO.
Sorry for the low quality phone pictures, but they are all I have at the moment.
w/ ARC D-130
w/Nord One UP mono's
Three years ago I had an SP-11 that I sold before purchasing an Aesthetix Calypso Signature. The Calypso is a very fine linestage preamplifier in its own right and is ultra flexible having both balanced and SE inputs and outputs. The SP-11 in my opinion equals the Calypso's sound quality AND affords the user perhaps the most flexible gain control in a preamp that's ever been designed. Offering an infinitely adjustable gain level to feed a power amp or pair of mono amps is a hard thing to live without once you've had a chance to use it. The result of having a variable gain like the SP-11 equates to a preamp that can match and drive most any amplifier.
Paired with both my ARC D-130 amp and/or a pair of Nord One UP mono's (the Nord's are balanced input only so I'm using RCA > XLR cables), the sound is sublime. I've only used the Nord's balanced (with the Calypso) until now, and understand their SE performance should be less than ideal. However, with the variable gain that the SP-11 affords, it drives the pair of Nord's without problem and the Nord's sound every bit as good as when being driven balanced IMO.
Sorry for the low quality phone pictures, but they are all I have at the moment.
w/ ARC D-130
w/Nord One UP mono's
