i'd ask the guys down in tech talk....or do a search. If i remember right it's a forssell/990 based pre, but i remember a couple strong opinions about the pre and the guy himself...

well first of all "better" is a relative term isn't it. What may be better to one person may be mediocre or even worse to someone else. Saying this pre-amp x is better than pre-amp y is meaningless if you don't qualify the comparison.
Morford has taken a standard vintage circuit design from a schematic then hand selected and tested the components used in the circuit to build the product. Is this better than building the same product with off the shelf components? Maybe, maybe not. I guess it all depends on the selection criteria and whether Morford's knowledge on components types and values adds value to the process. Like I said it's all relative. Better? What the hell does that mean?

I have dealt with Pat Morford several times and I will not deal with this man again. Very bad experience, his arrogant attitude is repulsive. I have lost a lot of money on gears I sent to him for modding; some of them returned either not working or failed to work shortly. He refused to fix them and just kept on saying things like vintage gear had no warranty. Ended up I need to send the gear to another service guy = more money paid. Some of the gear were so badly screwed up by him that they were beyond fixing. When I challanged him about this he said that he only knew how to mod them he didn't know why :evil: . And I think he is overcharging on his equipment.

Pat Morford is king of hype. I built one of his over priced poorly documented kits complete with wiring errors.

The Morford preamp itself uses the Millennia media 990 modules with support circuit design copied from various circuits not his own. but you can improve on that by using the Forssell Technology (original designer of the MM990) 993 module. Forssell website has plenty of schematics that will give you a good start.You can couple that with many different input transformers from Jensen or Lundahl. Original morford kit uses the Lundahl 1636 mic input ransformer. He files off the model number and calls it custom! As far as the pre itself, it is exellent. I agree that better is relative. I would say for accurate reproduction it would be hard to beat this one. I have also used the John Hardy module that will work in the same circuit. A friend of mine has a telefunken V-76 and we did A B them. I would say that the V-76 has a certain charactor that is its own. The Forssell based preamp came very close but they are just different. I wouldnt say better. The Forssell based module excels at accoustic accuracy. Great on accoustic instruments. I would highly reccomend forssell based preamp... just stay away from Pats kits unless you just want to pay 200% markup on the module and transformer mounted to a 5 dollar vero strip.

ooo ... a first post
welcome

A very old thread about Pat ...
:(
and a reference to the old tech talk
I'm not going to bite because I've said it all too many times before
:)

there are lots of good people to buy kits from
anyone wanting a kit can go some research and you will find some quality items
...
and you are welcome to email or PM me