Red Wine Audio Isabella Line Level Preamp w/DAC by Vinnie Rossi
For sale, we have a fine example of the well reviewed Red Wine Audio Battery powered preamp with internal DAC. The preamp and internal DAC are in perfect working order. The unit comes with a factory remote that controls the volume up and down functions only.
The Red Wine Audio Isabella, the former product line for the Vinnie Rossi Audio product, is a hybrid tube/solid state DAC and reference quality analog pre-amp. For those of you that know of his products, this is not a digital volume control added onto a fantastic NOS DAC but a true high-end line stage. In other words, this is a unit designed for a nice 2 channel environment. Also, if you need to integrate your 2 channel system into a home theater environment, a pass through was added to this unit. This work was done at the factory.
We were not able to locate the owners manual online, so we reached out to Vinnie Rossi himself, and he promptly responded. While Mr. Rossi now runs Vinnie Rossi Audio, he was gracious enough to also answer any questions we had via email.
The line stage tubes accept 6922/E88CC, 6DJ8/ECC88, 7308/E188CC, 7DJ8/PCC88, 6N23, 6H23, and 6N11. This is a great preamp to experiment with tube rolling.
All pots and switches were cleaned and then treated with Deoxit F5 and D5 respectively. We installed a pair of brand new SLA (Sealed Lead Acid) batteries, and replaced the worn tubes with a pair of new matching Tesla ECC88/6DJ8 tubes.
Physically the unit is in very good condition. There are some light blemishes on the right side of the faceplate, also, the top rear left side of the top shroud has some scuffs and blemishes. There are no dents or deep scratches, and the preamp presents itself very well.
Included with the Isabella are the remote, charger, and a printed owners manual.
We don't have the original box for this unit, but we take packaging and shipping seriously. We spare no expense and use heavy duty boxes, several inches of polyethylene foam on all sides of the unit, and use water activated, fiber reinforced tape on all seams.