[Puma Cat]

Hi Coppy,
I haven't decided yet what the final decision will be regarding the CT-5 yet; the verdict is still out. I did extensive demoing with a buddy two weeks ago comparing the Premier 17LS and the CT-5, and we both preferred the Pr17. The CT-5 was more detailed, transparent, and resolving, but it also sounded thin, flat, analytical, and was not very good at reproducing massed orchestral strings, like the violin section of a full orchestral piece, for example. The soundstage depth, width and height was smaller and flatter with the CT-5. We both felt the Pr17 imaged better, had a fuller, richer sound, and just plain sounded more like music than the CT-5. After a bit, my buddy didn't want to listen to the CT-5 anymore. He was very impressed with the Pr17, however.

After talking to my friend Tom, who also has a C-J CT-5 and an ET250S amp about our listening experiences and impressions, he still thinks I am going through the infamous C-J Teflon cap burn-in hell (or maybe that should be Teflon cap "burn in hell") syndrome. This preamp was purchased by the person who sold it to me on Dec. 12, 2010, and I bought it right around Feb. 12, so my friend Tom thinks there's no way the owner could have put sufficient hours on it in that short time to be fully burned in. Tom said that it took a good five months of listening before his started to sound good, and it continued to improve for another 3 or so months after that.

With that, I decided to give the CT-5 some more time, and sure enough, this last week, it really seems to be be improving in it's sound quality. I listened to it for several hours yesterday while cleaning records in the Spin-Clean, and there was a point last night when it kind of went "Snap!" and all of a sudden started sounding pretty good.

So...we'll see. I want to get more hours on the CT-5 to see where it's headed, and then perhaps look into some different tubes for it.