2. amps-preamps
  3. 1136293264

Best preamp is no preamp: always true?

There seems to be a school of thought that between two well-designed (read no major flaws) CDP and AMP, the best PREAMP is NO PREAMP at all (let's assume that the AMP has a sort of minimalist volume control).

Is this a solid and robust statement? What would be situations where this is not true (still no major design flaws)?
newerphile1cf0

Showing 1 response by rrcpa

rrcpa
37 posts
 
Intuitively the answer is Yes. However, in practice in ain't necessarily so I've found. My Wadia 6i will drive the ARC VT100 direct but I can truly detect no difference if I insert the ARC Ref 2. As a purist I wanted it to be better but I can't honestly say it was.
Maybe it boils down to the quality of the CD output stage?
Anyway, no rules or opinions can replace YOUR ear. If you like it that way - listen to it that way.
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