Later, I did more extensive comparisons between the Decware and my old passive. The CD was still bright but more listenable. When I did get it I raced home and inserted it in the system and plopped in a very compressed CD and from the first 5 seconds I could tell that this preamp gave a sweeter presentation. It took right at about 10 weeks to get the unit.

Wow, can you say 'the patience of Job necessary'. Then, finally, in fit of lust I ordered the thing. For a couple of months I lusted for the thing like a 7th grader who finds the womens underware section in the Sears catalogue. The description of the circuit was impressive. I'd heard about it here and visited the site. It was hard to believe since the LS-7 did not give any kind of sound that I heard described by the tubers. Hmmm, maybe them damn arrogant tubeheads are right. Trading up to the Meridian CDP made a major improvement but still there was a slight coldness keeping me slightly removed from the music. Still, there was always a coldness to the sound of my system. Mind you, I didn't notice this hardness and limited soundstage until I directly compared the LS-7 w/ the passive. In addition, the soundstage got much larger through the passive. The passive gave a much more natural sound w/o the sheen of hardness that the LS-7 donated to the music. was engineered w/ the idea of using a passive. I found out about passive units seeing as how the McC. Then I bought a McCormack DNA-1 and the sound improved even more. After about 3 weeks the sound bloomed out even more and I was happy. The sound was MUCH more clear, clean and w/o all the muffling of the sound I had w/ the Carver. From there, after a lot of reading, I ended up getting an Audio Research LS-7. It became the choice of the 'lesser evil'. I discovered when I fiddled around w/ the various gimmicks on the Carver preamp I noticed the sound changed a fair bit. Through my own ears and the help of a friend I began to dislike the sound of my system. The preamp for the system went for $350 and had all kinds of features included. I started my audio journey, using above average equipment, about 4 years ago and it consisted of Carver gear. While in my experience changing the preamp has resulted in some of the biggest changes to my systems sound. While I'm not going to get into that I have noticed that, more often than not, the preamp is relegated closer to the bottom of the list. On several occasions the debate on which component is the most important has taken place on this forum.

Decware sv83 mono