not just 'change' the sound, but in fact 'vastly improve' it. different tastes may prefer different NOS or better new production tubes, but the stock tubes in the M1000mk2 are awful and greatly handicap its performance. 60% is a fair, even overly generous, assessment. not naming the brand of the stock tubes in these units just shows how this review - like most - are glorified marketing brochures, afraid to expose any real weakness in the equipment. Out of respect for Kondo, I won't name the stock tubes here as the M1000mk2 is a fantastic preamp - probably one of the best ever made, the real deal unlike the UK Audio Note copycat garbage - just know the stock tubes are an issue, for less than 1% of the cost of the unit you can improve the sound by 50-100% or more.

But Myles is only reporting on a 'stock' Kondo system.... so this is what you get with stock tubes. And as with any tube component, tube-rolling can certainly 'change' the sound.

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the question. All the gear, electronics and wires, came broken-in from the importer/dealer. The cables and electronics had conservatively been used for at least a year, if not probably longer. And as I mentioned in the review, the system was here for three months. That's a typical amount of time I like to listen to a piece of gear or a system in this case before writing a review. In fact, the importer was willing to leave it for as much time as I needed to properly review the system.

It goes without saying you can't move cables around and expect them to sound good. That part's true for any and probably almost all good high-end cables.