[Bret L]

Stock, it is a very musical, sweet sounding preamp, and combined with
tube amps from Marantz, Mac, etc; and speakers like vintage Klipsch,
Altec, JBL, you'll have a very seductive but not entirely accurate
sounding system. That is what Asian audiophiles enjoy and why they pay
the big bucks, and if you ever had the pleasure of listening to such a
system, *you would understand why.

But mine is anything but stock.

First, Larry Smith of PAC installed solid state power supply
regulation.
I then proceeded to POOGE it (Audio Amateur 1/81), and installed Teflon
bypass caps. Carbon comp resistors were replaced with carefully matched
carbon films. And the output caps, too small for lo-z solid state amps
(or in my case, a modded Rane electronic crossover) are now 4.7 mF.

This modification was actually recommended by Saul Marantz Smith in a
letter to Absolute Sound. He said, " If used to drive input of 100K Ohms
or less, there is a loss of low bass due to the .22 mF output coupling
cap. This can be increased by adding 1 mF mylars in parallel..."

Oriental listeners listen with their eyes and see with their ears.
It's all status, really. There are i am sure exceptions but this is in
the main true.

POOGE was a great series and TAA was at its zenith in those days.
These schmucks have no idea just how good it was.