2. amps-preamps
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Best Preamp - NO preamp... (?)

A few hours ago I decided to experiment and bypassed my highly regarded, excellent passive preamp and hooked up my PS Audio DSD DAC directly to the power amp.
There is no going back...
Every aspect of the sound has improved so dramatically that I'm simply blown away. I'm a bit shocked, playing CD after CD and I still can't believe it.
My phono stage has gain control as well, so it seems that from now on it will be disconnecting RCAs and plugging each in turn.
Since I usually do vinyl day or cd day (or week) anyway, the trouble seems totally worth it. Letting the cable settle in for a bit is not an issue.
Am I just crazy or are any of you doing the same?
Should I be concerned about damaging  the RCAs over time?
Thanks for your thoughts and experience. :-)
ami

Showing 1 response by mirolab

mirolab
208 posts
 
For me... bypassing the preamp has always been my "sanity check" for what the preamp is really doing, or not doing for me.  I've never heard a preamp be MORE transparent than NO preamp.... but it often adds a little something here or there that is desirable..... but of course it's still a necessary part of the system.   So you just gotta find one that has colorations that YOU like or that work in your system.   To this day.... I still have not found an AV pre/pro that I like better than my old Anthem AVM-20 for it's analog pass-through.  I've tried 4 different $2-3k pre-pros whose analog performance was terrible..... just to convince myself that i was not crazy.... I plugged my Oppo blu-ray directly into my amp.. and it sounds GREAT...... therefore.... I know for a fact that the analog pass through of the new pre-pro sucks.  My Anthem is not perfect... but it does sound very good.
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