Sorry to raise an old thread from the ashes.
I just picked up an SP20 for home audition. Its replacing a McIntosh C47 and feed a Plinius SA103 into Focal Diablo speakers plus REL G1 sub.
While it does not have the looks of the traditional AR equipment I am not bothered by the touch screen. Use it to set things up and then never need to play with it again.
I find that it sounds absolutely wonderful. Im not able to describe audio very well but will say that I find myself drawn to longer listening sessions with this preamp in my system than with the McIntosh that resided previously. It has an absolutely stonking phono stage, and is way better than what I remember my Plnius Phono stage that I had a few years back (and that was a good phono-stage). It certainly sounds better than the C47 phono section.
I do think it is a very revealing pre in that poor recordings sound poor through it, and in some was it sounds detailed but not analytical. Im always drawn to the performance rather than getting stuck with some minor aspect of the sound.
Yeah, for me this is a good preamp and I plan to spend many years with it!
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