Tube Preamplifier for Home Audio Player Mini Hi-Fi Stereo Preamp with Treble & Bass Control (6K4 Tubes)

I’ve bought several of these now. I’ll do my best to give an honest review.First of all, the craftsmanship is good. The PCB is very cheap, however, and the first one I bought (the FX Audio version) had an issue with the general area of the power supply section and it caused it to short out. Be very careful when plugging the adapter in.Speaking of the adapter, go ahead and toss the included one in the trash and buy a bigger laptop style power supply. The one that comes with it seems to be underpowered and gets very hot.As far as the tubes go, the 6k4 tubes that come with the unit are not bad. They do not sound terrible and I recommend keeping them in if you’re looking for better midrange response.But if you care enough to buy a tube preamp to listen to your music with, chances are that you’ll want to hear what the 5654s are like. I’ve used a lot of different NOS vintage brands, but the GE Jan is probably the best overall sounding tube, followed by the Westinghouse “Black Hole” style tubes.If you feel adventurous and you like tinkering with radio equipment, feel free to change out the op amps inside. If you’re feeling really adventurous, change the dual op amp to two single OPA627’s. Change the plastic tube fixture to a ceramic or bakelite one.With one of my other tube preamps, I’ve changed out the generic capacitors with vintage paper in oil capacitors and the sound keeps getting better.If you’re bored enough, you can really make these sound amazing. It’s a great little entry point to tube audio and electronic tinkering.

Like a lot of posters, I am skeptical of these cheap mini chi-fi components but decided to give a shot. My expectations were low, which is good in the audio enhancement world, we all know how placebo effect can set in when you fall in Gear Love before it even ships! Anyway, this thing is tiny and feels a bit on the fragile side when all the cables are plugged in. No issues plugging in the tubes, so that was good. My purpose for this was purely experimental, tweaking for the fun of it, like a lot of audio nerds. I’m using this as a buffer - running a Onkyo 7030 CD player into this pre-amp, then out to my fully restored Sansui 317 integrated amp via the AUX RCA input, not the pre-outs - Speakers are Ascend Acoustic 340se mains. This way, it get tone control functions on both the tube pre-amp and the integrated amp, allowing me to shape the sound a bit more. I had to adjust the volume on both pre-amp and amp but not an issue. It was dead quite, that was the first test for me, at least I knew it didn’t introduce any detectable noise or static. I did notice more of a tightness to the bass, highs seems smoother in this early stage using the stock tubes. It’s sounds surprisingly good, and gives me the ability to fine tune bass and treble. So, yeah, it made a difference in my system, and because of that, I just ordered a set of the Russian tubes to test out. In fact, I may build a office system based off these mini pre amp/ amps, as I have an extra set of nice bookshelves speakers laying around.

The media could not be loaded. Let me tell you this tube preamp is a game changer and the Suca preamp lets you really tweak the audio they way you want it to sound you can even change the tubes out I recommend going the the GE JAN5654W tubes it’s really gives you that warm crisp sound and really brings out the notes in every song you play that maybe you missed or didn’t notice before if your looking to build a hifi setup this tube preamp is a must also this preamp works great with the audio technica lp60x turntable but you have to make sure the switch on the back of the turntable is switch to line that means the built in preamp is on it’s sorta weird cause they say it’s not a preamp for turntables but it’s a tube preamp beats me but if your turntable has a built in pre amp this tube preamp box is a must

Remember this is a pre amp, if you want loud you're going to need a boost. Out of the box it works functionally well, although I had to add a ground wire from the turntable to the preamp to stop done harsh noise. Do yourself a favor and upgrade the times right away. I ordered a few from different sources and my favorites were from Russia purchased on eBay. Now it sounds amazing.

Well, I've played with a few of these. Controls are so smooth for treble and bass, wider and longer than others, and pics of the insides look very nice and well made. The fact that this is sold as a tube buffer is what got me to try it. Quieter at high volume than a Nobosound and FX audio 03 and sounds better. I got so excited I just tried it out without further testing than what follows - Adding it after my solid state preamp and into an integrated Sansui running as a power amp, it definitely improved the sound then without it. On a Yamaha power amp I didn't get improved sound. When it did improve sound, I could not only clearly hear the staccato strings around 1:30 of Elo's Confusion, but I could hear the nuance of how hard they were striking the strings, whereas on some setups I can barely hear that passage at all. For $37 bucks, I would try this before other tube pres.