2. amps-preamps
  3. 177864-167141

A warm natural sounding preamp

I currently have a Bryson 4B Amp  a pair of dynaudio special 40 speakers my preamp is a cocktail X45  I HAVE A LINN BAsic turn tabel with a Lin Adict cartridge in it. Now I don't like the sound from the preamp the cocktail X45 is a great streamer cd player and ripper and digital recorder but identical like the sound from the preamp. I have a budget of between 6000 and 8000 dollars together a new preamp. Now I am looking for a preamp with a very warm and natural sound to it it can be tube or solid state. I need it to have a phono section that can take MM or MC have digital inputs and analog inputs must have balanced outputs tothe Amp and have at least a 2end output as well either analog or digital to send the music to the cocktail X45 so I can record it digital when I want to. The only brands i have considered at this point are MacIntosh and the Rotel Michi line. Can anyone out there direct me in recomending any other preamps out there Thank You Michael. 

mal11963

Showing 2 responses by audition__audio

audition__audio
1,634 posts
 

Warm and natural are mutually exclusive terms. 

audition__audio
1,634 posts
 

jjss49,

But adding warmth to warmth is not what you want. To best reproduce warmth you want neutrality. I am not so sure adding additional harmonics is what would be ideal. As an example I wouldnt call Atma-sphere amplifiers warm, I would say they are neutral sounding as far as tube amps are concerned. One of the reasons the SET guys sometimes call OTLs cold or sterile sounding. Now adding good harmonics to signal is better than adding a bunch of bad harmonics if this is your point.

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