The CDC direct to 300p combo is near to reference as I hear it on Baroque and uncannily accurate though not the greatest oomph provider on heavy and heavily compressed bass lines and rhythm sections. The HPA on the contrary immediately strutted its muscle preamp stuff punching and driving Lee Moses while perceptibly buttressing the sound box on the De Rore and Monteverdi sets. On the Baroque tracks however, it could not quite match the CDC's tranquil transparency, thus keeping the old best-preamp-is-no-preamp saw on life support. This was more a matter of internal timing than of background blackness and can very credibly be ascribed to the fact that the two Nagra components were voiced for one another. All in all the competing results lead me to write up the second and more relevant match as a draw though not without the usual qualifications concerning recordings, musical preferences etc.

Now to another level with the hotrod solutions. There is no doubt in my mind that the hotrod PL-P on the 300p is unbeatable on its own terms. This is hardly an absolutist appraisal when real high-end components invariably complement each other in creating their designer's take on sound. The real question then was not whether the HPA paired with the Nagra amp sounded different but whether it was capable of playing in the same league. Since the answer became a resounding yes, some details are in order. On the Baroque sets the HPA gave great vividity to vocal peaks both baritone and soprano without resorting to startling special effects. On the R&B tracks, it sidelined the bottom-feeder mixing and miking by underlining, how shall I put it, the essential soul of the production (okay, I actually wrote that). These arrangements differed somewhat from those carried out by the all-Nagra setup, suggesting a virtually infinite headroom space instead of a vast recording venue for instance, or enhancing underlying rhythms rather than vocal dramatics. This kind of musical communication was nonetheless intimately organized and connected, quite as controlled and coherent in fact as with the ideal Nagra tube combo.

The next comparison was particularly tricky. As I have maintained elsewhere, my genuine Nelson Pass made serial n°682 F5 is a completely credible alternative to the tubed 300p, the real differences coming down to little more than personal preference. This is signally so when the Firstwatt amp is coupled to the hotrod PL-P. In fact, this is the best implementation of the F5 I had heard so far. The advantages of a tube-mosfet hybrid are very easy to market and quite as difficult to implement particularly in a cross-brand configuration. A high damping factor is a godsend to stiff-surround shortest-throw 15-inch kapok cones but only if you don't have to accept tweakings of the last two octaves in exchange. Casually fortunate as this combination may be, reverting to an all-transistor solution raised the possibility of a silicon signature which I would mostly find incompatible with long-term low-level listening. I won't say that I winced when toggling the celebrated circular switch on the CDC but I did brace myself for an unaccustomed ride. And what a ride it turned out to be.