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In the big system my new white AudioSolutions Rhapsody 200 speakers combine a vintage Sonus faber-reminiscent sonic aesthetic with a very American rather than Italian bass balance and highly dynamic reflexes to demand power and low Z-out as supplied by ModWright's KWA-100SE. On the opposite end of the Taurus Pre sat my new reference DAC, the formidable fully balanced 24/192 NOS Metrum Hex. Source was my customary quad-core iMac running Audirvana 1.4.2 (integer/direct Audiophilleo 2 + Bakoon BPS-02 + KingRex uArt) or PureMusic 1.88a (Metrum direct). Context preamps were Esoteric's C-03 and ModWright's LS-100. Whilst more expensive and full-featured, comparative comments generated with them focus solely on sonics.

In culinary terms, for those familiar with my ModWright and FirstWatt SIT1 amps—push/pull class AB Mosfet vs. single-ended/stage power Jfet—the above speaker descriptions could have predicted that the 6SN7-based LS-100 preamp softened this particular stew slightly beyond al dente whilst the Taurus Pre turned off the heat sooner to keep veg crisper. In which case, good chef. The valves really were texturally more opulent and elastic, had the dynamically greater shove but with these 18dB/octave filtered paper cones and silk domes also had the higher fuzziness and minorly 'resonant' redolence. Just a tad overcooked perhaps. In this context the cooler leaner supremely sorted contributions of the AURALiC kept the end result closer to pungent fresh Thai cuisine. This meant slow-cooked British stews called pies and mushy peas weren't on the menu (that's overstated for emphasis).

In musical terms the Psvane 6SN7-fitted system lightly lengthened reverb times, the Taurus Pre played it more damped. These are typical very basic observations between these output devices. Being both transistorized, more interesting was the difference between Esoteric and AURALiC. Sonically the former occupied space between Taurus Pre and LS-100. The Esoteric thus was sweeter, a bit fuller of body and for lack of a better expression texturally more elegant or elegiac. The offset was small enough to make either flavor most suitable for this system whose primary virtues are high density and mass with big fleshy images and boisterous dynamics. It's natural to feel 'on the trigger' involved and alert at elevated engulfing oceanic levels. It's just as easy to get slightly cooler and more at arm's length as playback levels recede. With them the music distances itself to eventually vanish in Avalon's mists. Here the Taurus Pre's high intelligibility, separation and keenness kept at it slightly longer.


I've been used to the brilliant Raal ribbon tweeters of the Aries Cerat Gladius whose sealed bass alignment further makes for a leaner airier faster sound. On my desktop there's Gallo's unique CDT3 180° tweeter whose surface area exceeds that of a handful of ordinary tweeters. I thus also appreciated what the Taurus Pre did for the Lithuanian speaker's Norwegian fabric-dome tweeter which became just a bit more 'open-throated'. High virtual mass must be balanced by good see-into-ness if you fancy hearing all of the recorded acoustic whose resurrection relies on secondary and tertiary cues embedded in or behind the primary stage action. Whilst the Taurus Pre won't create this high virtual mass—this was well taken care of already in my context—its great resolution goes a long way toward such ambient recovery. Knowing what that should be is just one switch and plug-in away. By eliminating room interactions, headphones can't help but work with only what was recorded. Here one loses a bit from lack of acoustic crossfeed but performer halos which light up space around instruments and voices tend to be very obvious.

If you're looking for a dedicated headphone amp, AURALiC's 'just' Taurus is the one as the company itself explained. The Taurus Pre is for folks who need a preamp—those who don't might want to check out the new Vega processor—then mean to also do secondary headphoning without the expense of another component. With its fully balanced gain stage and output buffer, the Taurus Pre is ideally mated to an equally balanced power amp where the stable mate Meraks make perfect partners of course. As all other AURALiC components before, the Taurus Pre is petite but potent. Free from deliberate voicing—6.3mm outputs excepted due to increased treble energy in that app—this machine exemplifies modern high-resolution sound focused on the visual elements of the playback experience. Those are crisp fast transients, first-rate separation of paralleled or interwoven musical strings, high ambient recovery and as a result well-sorted dimensional soundstaging with precise image allocation and pronounced layer differentiation. Build quality is tops, operation straightforward and value high as has by now become the company's byword.
AURALiC website