$7000 preamp vs $700 receiver - Is the difference THAT significant?
@rabbottmke you have gotten plenty of input here... i would only add one more thing - you said this: The AVR does NOT have a good DAC, as I understand it. The Bluesound has a much more evolved DAC, so I’m running unbalanced line out (relying on the Bluesound DAC) with some "TIMBRE" series Kimber interconnects. your node 2i internal dac may be more evolved than the one in the marantz avr but as dacs go, that internal node 2i dac is not very good -- the sound is tuned to be innocuous and smooth (grey sounding) at the expense of clarity (dynamics/prat, resolution/extension, air) - so if sound quality improvement is your only priority, you should get a $1500-2000 proper hifi linestage and a $700-1000 outboard dac, and use the node 2i to feed the dac a bitstream https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/spend-on-the-streamer-or-on-the-dac?page=3 |
@rabbottmke So there are three camps here. pls don’t misread or misinterpret what we are saying on the above - we don’t know you, your system, your room, your hearing the SQ upgrade will be there if you upgrade to a high quality 2 channel preamp from the AVR as you are considering... we simply don’t know whether ’your ears suck’ as you say - so we can’t promise you will hear it -- but we are confident to say, given a decent room and setup, with your gear, the improvement will be there to be heard... good luck |
@rabbottmke to be totally blunt... how much difference you hear will be a function of how good/experienced your listening skills are your system has the ability to resolve the difference - the peachtree is the next sq bottleneck i would say ...to unleashing your system’s full potential (and of course, your room... but we are talking gear here) in standard, experienced audiophile circles we would say the sound quality improvement would be quite substantial... whether you will perceive it as such is an open question but as others have rightfully said - 700 to 7000 is really not the right quantum... you will get serious sq improvement with a good 2 channel preamp for 1500-2000 - above that you are buying the mac w meters cuz that is what you are drooling over |
