Into the dark abyss I go again....

[manlystanley]

I'm beginning to toy with the idea of replacing my Adcom GTP-500 preamp. The amp is good (when it works) but it has this nasty problem of sometimes having the right channel fade out; and/or bass response just dies. I think I've traced the problem to this my pre, so I'm trying to think about what I want to look for in an preamp.


I'm really thinking about a tube preamp. This is because, I want the preamp to improve the following on my system:


-- Dynamics: I hear tube really improve on micro and macro dynamics, correct?

-- Make it More Musical: I have no idea what this means. I hear you guys using this term as the highest praise that a component can have. I hear thinks like:
* Tubes create music; transistors reproduce it.
* Tubes bring music to life.
* etc.

* All these terms sound great and make me want tubes in my system, but I'm not quite sure what it means. But if all you audiophiles are into tubes, it must be a good thing. Comments?


-- I'd love to have a remote. I'm so sick of getting up and down to adjust the volume.


Besides these above things, I don't even know what questions to ask. Any help would be greatly appreciated to the above questions and to other questions such as:


-- I am right in looking into a tube preamp (correct?)
-- I read the debates here about tubes versus non-tubes and I'm confused.
-- Is it true that SS will sound more precise, but tubes will sound more 'life-like'?


Thanks,
Stan