As a further update, I recorded both the ES1 and ES2 direct into the line-in on my laptop. Definitely a crude test. Both systems with everything at 100%, and the ES2's waveform looked to be about 90% of the ES1, which is much closer than I thought. Definitely the metallic nature of the ES1 lends itself to cutting through when used through an amplifier. The ES2 sounds extremely natural, like a microphone. It's a noisy little bugger picking up all the string squeaks and body taps.
Also worth noting is I used the Fishman Matrix VT in this test as well, and it was about equal to both of them. So again the ear test failed through a guitar amp likely due to the very quacky nature of the Matrix in comparison to the other two.
As it stands, I'm not 100% sold that my ES2 is "broken" and I'm also not 100% sold that this new preamp isn't quieter than the old preamp.
Will keep updating later...
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