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The soundstage spread is wider and deeper with the Sauvignon. This allows for a more separated spread of images where the VL10.1 packs it a little tighter but not by much though - good job considering the Sauvignon is such a champ at soundstaging. The JE Audio preamp has a much quieter background. The Aussie in fact could be seen—or heard—as downright noisy in comparison. And that statement applies not so much to circuit noise through the fairly efficient Sasha (both preamps are fairly quiet given their valve designs) but to musical information emerging from a moonless black abyss in the case of the VL10.1. You’re hearing music and only music, no hash, no smearing of low-level information. Ergo the astonishing levels of detailing and microdynamics that surface forth. This follows through to outstanding instrumental and musical strand separation and resolution (this latter was in no minor way aided by the extraordinary Siltech 550L speaker cable coming up for review).
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At the top extreme the VL10.1 is much more refined, extended and grainless than its predecessor. Play any percussive bells or cymbals and the preamp follows through with delicacy, air, superb harmonic and tonal structure. Those bells and cymbals sure do sound like coruscating metal. And who said the 6H30 valve was brash? This is one sweet preamp, another major-league improved aspect over the VL10. No brightness, spotlighting or high-frequency imbalances here.
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'To keep the bastards honest' as the Aussie political saying goes, I hooked up the austere Wyetech Labs Jade at the final stages of the reviewing process. This quite simple design features high-quality components and is built like a brick outhouse. Price-wise it’s in the same ballpark as the main narrative’s protagonist and its allotted nemesis. The Wyetech has the tightest and most nuanced bass registers while matching the JE Audio’s dead-quiet backgrounds and microdynamic expression. The Canadian is as boisterous as the Aussie larrikin in terms of macrodynamic contrast and slightly forward of the speaker plane soundstaging while packing it as tight as the JE Audio but with slightly more precise imaging. When it comes to these three preamplifiers, taste and system balance will determine the ideal match. To say X is better than Y in this case would be almost child-like naïveté.
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View from above. As I sit and type this, I realise that subconsciously a day or two prior I had changed my screen’s wallpaper image to a glorious high-rise view of the megalopolis that is Hong Kong. Taken as an eagle-eye’s view during the nightly Light Show from one of the swankiest restaurants in town—thank you, largest British speaker manufacturer— the skyline stretches impossibly upwards and infinitely outwards as the laser lights scar the night sky with trails of green, white and red.
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‘Honkers’ is one of my favourite cities. On every visit it has imprinted me with indelible memories of its diverse people, cultural richness and urban elegance and vibrancy. In some respects these qualities reflect the core of the VL10.1. JE Audio has wrought richer purer tonal colours and a level of sophistication that mirrors—mid Light Show at its most spectacular—the great city’s creative wellspring from which it rose. |
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