Reporting in on the Black Swan preamp.  I got my busted monoblock fixed and running smoothly.  Wow! they never sounded this good.  Now I get what the fuss is about for the “hallucinations” from audio.  I took it over to my friend’s with the audiophile setup last night. He was impressed, we listened to several jazz albums, he definitely heard more detail than his other setup.  The black swan replaced his PH-16 tube preamp.  He was also running tubes on a Dynakit power amp rebuilt with a bunch of modern bias circuitry and those overpriced russian oil filled capacitors, so it was still plenty warm enough for his taste.   My monoblocks sound exactly warm enough with this, I guess they like getting a nice accurate signal.

Now I really want to hear your new power amp.

I was lucky enough to get to trial the Black Swan as did a couple others at work.  The sound on the Black Swan immediately blew me away.   It was natural sounding while not fatiguing at all.  I was so blown away as my whole album collection had become new to me all over again!  I kept putting on different albums and was just amazed at the sound coming out.  Hours went by while I did this and pointing it out to my wife who also thought the sound was much clearer than it previously was.  I was immediately sold and ready to swap out my existing phono pre-amp gladly.
After having the Black Swan for a few months nothing has changed.  I’m still very excited to plug it in and fire it up to listen to some beautiful music.  The Black Swan is very configurable as since I have purchased it I have swapped out carts on my turntable.  It really didn’t take much time to get the Black Swan dialed in.  The sound stage is vast to where I feel I am at a live show.  At this point I need to question the rest of my gear and audition more from Austin Audioworks!”