I've just taken delivery of an MFA Baby Reference V2, and I'm very taken with it. The sound I'm getting is delightful and musically engaging. So count me in on this particular fan club. I struggle to think of any preamp at a similar price that could match its blend of insight, colour, texture and engagement. I've previously owned 3 Shindo preamps (Aurieges, Monbrison and Masseto) and I loved them all. But with their high gain, they were tricky to match in a system that was not all Shindo. I've listened to EAR, Linear Tube Audio, Modwright 36.5 and the Audio Music AM RT2 Silver Edition preamps. There are many paths to audio nirvana, and I think this route is a good one to check out. Audio Bill makes some very good points above - to make this approach work, you must focus on appropriate impedance matching and ensure you've got adequate gain along your signal chain. If you want a tubed phono stage, that can be tricky, but I found the EAR 88PB phono stage, which has a volume control & plenty of gain on tap, worked well for me at not outrageous cost. I took a toe in the water approach by buying a 2nd hand Django passive at low cost, living with it for a while, and comparing with other active preamps, before committing to the Baby Reference. That said, matching of active preamps with power amps of a different brand can be fraught with challenges also, as I found with Shindo.
