Well I haven't tested the preamp alone. I replaced a Rega Brio integrated with the salas phono stage, BA3 pre and F4 power amps. Overall the improvement was very impressive. Much better control of the low end and also a wider soundstage with more "air". Overall the sound is quite "musical, but not the most detailed.( the ba3 is not know for being the most detailed amplifier out there.). When I connect a digital source there is also some improvement so I can say the the phono stage is responsible for some of that nice sound!
Here are the latest pics:
Dirty psu section with line filter. Dual mono PSU umbilical.
The black knob works as on/off switch, input selection and volume control. When turned on there are 2 numeric led displays on behind the black acrylic for volume display. 64 steps
Control board for the attenuator/source selector. Remote control receiver on the front side,
Cat5 wiring for signal.
Salas SSLV regulators, BA3 front end at 30V and relaixed passive attenuator. using vishay self resistors. The control board for the attenuator is in the front panel and the power relay/5V control voltage section pcb is in the psu case. 8 wire umbilical carries control wiring and dual mono DC for the regulators.
"gain" is the output from the BA3 preamp, "0db" does not have any active circuitry in the signal, so it is a passive preamp output, "loop" simply outputs the selected source, so it is just a source selector.
The two AC female connectors are controlled by the preamp on/off relay switch (10A/250V), so when I turn the preamp on I can turn 2 other devices at the same time. ATM using one of them for the phono stage, might feed a DAC in the future with the other one.
Preamp PSU.
System in my DIY oak rack (solid oak kitchen countertop cut to size)
A small video of the system playing, you can see the F4 power amplifier behind the left speaker. It will eventually be placed in the large lower opening in the rack, but I need to build ventilator to extract all the heat (200W) from those heatsinks. Some sort of undershelf with 140mm computer fans is on the way.
https://youtu.be/OpMUCAIiMUY