Conrad Johnson Owners.com

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forum. I'm looking at my first foray into CJ tube preamps. I wanted to get some advice around the CJ Premier 17, 16 and CT5. I have a budget of $2000 right now but can stretch to about $3500 in the next 6 months. I wanted to know if the difference in price, I can get a Premier 17 for about $1650 but I've seen some LS16 and CT5 for around $3500, yields a significant performance. I'll be using them with a Plinius SA100 mkIII.

Thanks for any of your thoughts
Regards
Alan

Hi Jazzao,

Welcome to the forum. The Pr16 and CT5 are a significant step up from the Pr 17. The Pr16 being more traditional CJ sound while the CT5 is more modern with Teflon caps. The modern CJ sound will be more detailed, with better extension at the frequency extremes.
With that said, you can not go wring with any one of the three. You can get the Pr17 and in the future when you can send it to CJ for a Teflon cap upgrade. That would get your very close to the CT5.

Thanks Ronenash,
i'll probably save a bit more to be able to get the Teflon upgrade as I will need to send it back to the factory to convert the voltage. I'll also be in the US in the summer so will time my purchase when I'm there. Hopefully when I have the pre I can report back to the forum and be a full pledge CJ owner .