For now, I can share my experience of listening to DENAFRIPS ATHENA.
It was a really big and pleasant surprise for me, what an incredible positive benefit preamp did when listening to music.
My hifi set consists of:
CD player AYON CD-2S
streamer AURALIC ARIES MINI
turntable VPI PRIME-SCOUT
phonopreamp CANOR TP306VR
tuner Magnum Dynalab Etude
power amplifier AUDIO RESEARCH REFERENCE 75
speakers SONUS FABER CREMONA M
DENAFRIPS ATHENA preamplifier.
In the past, I used KRELL KSP 7B as a preamplifier and also AUDIO RESEARCH LS27. They are already quite old components, but they still worked well. After connecting DENAFRIPS ATHENA, a new dimension of listening to music began for me.
Everything suddenly became more precise, very accurate 3D rendering, clarity and dynamics …. compared to my old preamplifiers, it's an incredible shift in the quality of listening to music.
I admit that before I bought DENAFRIPS ATHENA, I was thinking about replacing the whole set. DENAFRIPS ATHENA does a really great job, because now I enjoy listening to music again, I like it. It brought me not only more accurate and more defined listening, but also melodicity and feelings of joy from listening to music.
It's such a big move for the better that I even started thinking that in the future I could replace my power amplifier with DENAFRIPS THALLO. Unfortunately I haven't found any sound reviews for this product yet.
And I'm also a little worried whether the power of around 200W on the transistor amplifier can easily control even more demanding speakers.
But I turned a little differently in the topic. I'm just extremely happy with the performance and quality of DENAFRIPS ATHENA. Exactly 3D display of the music scene, very very low distortion, great dynamics, incredible silence in the background. A bit unusual is the audible click of the relay when selecting the volume. But the onset of individual musical tones are very precise, fast and defined. Also, the overall musical impression is excellent in one word, just the joy of listening to music. The musical quality is most pronounced when listening to Hi-Res.
DENAFRIPS ATHENA can perfectly distinguish and render quality recordings compared to standard ones. I can highly recommend DENAFRIPS ATHENA to everyone after my listening experience, it is a really great product.
Greetings of a beautiful day
Credit: Peter. @ Czech Republic