So we know the higher end preamps don’t include dacs and phono stages. Highly desirable noise free devices. I hear wonderful things about these preamps, Luxman, Accuphase, Audio Research, etc.
I don't think you need a preamp in a digital/streaming system. You just need an attenuuator to "pre-attenuate" the signal. If you want the best attenuation, the Benchmark LA4 is about as clean and transparent as it gets.
That said, if you try several linestages, you may find one that produces a deep emotional response when you hear music played through it. But I don't think money relates directly to finding that magic, or that the linestage is objectively better than others. It's all experiential.
In my case, it was a Modwright 36.5 with a NOS Mullard in the power supply. Loved it in the first fifteen seconds and ever since. Wouldn't let it go. More distortion? I'll trump that objective card with pure pleasure and a smile of musical bliss.
I was trying to make a point with extremes. A point which you can substitute your favorite amp in place of the Lamms. The thrust of my argument, I believe, will still hold true. No one can argue your perception or argue how any piece of equipment makes you feel. But, with respect to the example I’ve chosen, the Lamm SETs, it’s really not fair to discount what a great majority of reviewers, reviewers who are paid to review gear, have said about a unit publicly and in major journals. You certainly are free to disagree about their opinions, but still...
Not going to dig out the references, but I used the Lamms as an example bc reviewers in Absolute Sound, Stereophile, and several other journals have said it—repeatedly—about every iteration of the Lamm SET products. I chose the Lamm example bc they have relatively high THD graphs and pros said they sound better than pretty much everything else out there.
Benchmark LA4 Line stage device sounds interesting to simplify whatever a stereo preamp does. For streaming only, seems ideal and wonder about amp matching issues. Wish it came with a ht bypass.
my current system consists of Musical Fidelity M6PRX amp and M6PRE. I am also using a Mytek Brooklyn Dac + and PS Audio phono stage. Both the Dac and Phono stage have preamps and the M6PRX amp has switchable inputs. I took the preamp out of the system and am running the Dac and phono straight to the amp. It sounds very good and I tried it for several weeks but I will be putting the Pre back in simply because with the pre it sounds "more musical" to me. Hard to describe, both are very good but with the Pre it just sounds right. This may be a dumb statement but doesn't every component deconstruct and reconstruct the signal ?
cerberus79 - As far as I know, any signal coming in to a box via interconnect cable is processed in some way and goes out of the box differently. Even if it is just going through the interconnects, the sound changes. Less processing is better (cleaner, although some people like their sound colored a certain way - I prefer accurate sound as the artist/producer/sound mixer intended). That's why not using a bass and treble knob gives more accurate sound and equalizers sound bad. It's a case of less is more. Also, a switchable amp is for all intents and purposes an integrated amp. It has to be switchable (by definition) since you are listening to two sources. That's the tradeoff of the Sutherland box - it is a phono stage only and goes straight to a power amp. No other sources are accessible to that amp without unplugging some cord and plugging it somewhere else.
@itsjustme - good to know. what is an RIAA? If it is some kind of processing of the signal, it defeats the purpose. If not, are you a manufacturer of products or a tinkerer building things for your own enjoyment?
When I found that my German Physiks speakers sounded better with a Class D amp than my Krell, I removed the preamp and feed the MiniDSP streamer digital feed direct to the amp. This eliminates an unnecessary DAC and ADC cycle- and sounds wonderful.
Consider ignoring the "If You can’t Measure it"..."Only Trust Blind Testing" posts and LISTEN....
That’s just it you can measure it, and hear it. Going direct is even better again than the quote below by Nelson Pass, as there’s one less set of interconnects and a volume pot in the signal path, when going direct.
Nelson Pass:
“We’ve got lots of gain in our electronics. More gain than some of us
need or want. At least 10 db more.
Think of it this way: If you are running your volume control down around
9 o’clock, you are actually throwing away signal level so that a
subsequent gain stage can make it back up.
Routinely DIYers opt to make themselves a “passive preamp” - just an
input selector and a volume control.
What could be better? Hardly any noise or distortion added by these
simple passive parts. No feedback, no worrying about what type of capacitors –
just musical perfection.
And yet there are guys out there who don’t care
for the result. “It sucks the life out of the music”, is a commonly
heard refrain (really - I’m being serious here!). Maybe they are reacting
psychologically to the need to turn the volume control up compared to an active
preamp.”
@georgehifi You forgot to post the rest of Pass' thoughts on the subject:
Is impedance matching an issue? Passive volume controls do have to make a trade-off between input impedance and output impedance. If the input impedance is high, making the input to the volume control easy for the source to drive, then the output impedance is also high, possibly creating difficulty with the input impedance of the power amplifier. And vice versa: If your amplifier prefers low source impedance, then your signal source might have to look at low impedance in the volume control.
This suggests the possibility of using a high quality buffer in conjunction with a volume control. A buffer is still an active circuit using tubes or transistors, but it has no voltage gain – it only interposes itself to make a low impedance into a high impedance, or vice versa.
If you put a buffer in front of a volume control, the control’s low impedance looks like high impedance. If you put a buffer after a volume control, it makes the output impedance much lower. You can put buffers before and after a volume control if you want.
The thing here is to try to make a buffer that is very neutral. Given the simple task, it’s pretty easy to construct simple buffers with very low distortion and noise and very wide bandwidth, all without negative feedback.
There are reasons many like what they hear through a preamp (or a unity gain buffer) better than through no preamp or through a passive.
There are reasons many like what they hear through a preamp (or a unity gain buffer) better than through no preamp or through a passive.
Let’s hear your technical reasons Mitch on this.
If you quote someone you need to put before it Quote:Nelson Pass you still have quite a few minutes to correct your post.
And you don’t understand, today there is 99% of the time NO impedance issues, unless you have one of those stupid power amps that are 10kohm or less input impedance, then not even tube preamps will drive them no matter how expensive they are.
Glad to hear Pass agrees with me. Now if I could only afford any of his equipment....
Yes well he is a "business man", and does make preamps, there’s money to be made there also, that’s just what you pay for knowledge and you’ve got to say if your a "glitz queen" they do look the part.
I preferred his older Threshold poweramp circuit designs, when he used bi-polar output devices. Mosfets are good if you only use N channel top and bottom (but he doesn’t and it’s difficult), because then both top and bottom N Mosfets can give current, but the problem is the P channel doesn’t it’s always weaker, so a conventional push/pull complimentary l N and P channel Mosfet amp can’t give the current into low impedances like a NPN/PNP bi-polar can.
@georgehifi You have made us all aware of your opinion on the subject of preamps but I thought the readers here might benefit from seeing the whole Nelson Pass quote. Mr. Pass apparently believes there is sometimes a need for a preamp or buffer, for the reasons he stated in the quote, or simply because some people believe it sounds better with a preamp in their system. I get that Pass is a businessman but he is also somebody who has never been afraid to march to the beat of his own drum so I do not buy that the only reason he designs and manufactures preamps is for people who want glitz. I doubt he would manufacture the $17,500 XP-32 three-chassis reference preamp if he didn't believe it added something positive to the sound of his amplifiers in more than 1 percent of systems. I have no interest in a technical debate as my observations on the subject were already posted on this thread on October 25, at 12:02pm.
Mr. Pass apparently believes there is sometimes a need for a preamp
Yes, and I've also said this, as I said in my second last post when the impedances are mismatched, but I also said 99% of the time this is not an issue.
I doubt he would manufacture the $17,500 XP-32 three-chassis reference preamp if he didn't believe it added something
It can only add coloration/distortion to the sound of the source, I ask you why not hear what the sound of the source is by going direct, then if you don't like it, don't spend $17k to color/distort it. Change it for a better source. Quote: Ivor Tifenbrun (Linn LP12) "It all starts at the source get that right and the rest is going to follow" And I'll add to that get it wrong, and you chase your tail looking for the right preamp to color the problem, as they all sound different.
This threat is unneccesarily long: assuming no highly unusual impedance miss match there is no conceivable reason for a separate preamp in a digital reproduction chain: additional cabling and circuits for no gain (pardon the pun)
This thread is unnecessarily long: assuming no highly unusual impedance miss match there is no conceivable reason for a separate preamp in a digital reproduction chain: additional cabling and circuits for no gain (pardon the pun)
How true, but it’s like talking to the deaf, but there are those that feel the need to color their sound with an expensive bandaid fix by adding a preamp with their added coloration/distortions, because there’s something else they don’t like in their systems when it goes direct from source to poweramp with no preamp. They may as well buy a 4 way tone control like the Schiit Loki. https://www.schiit.com/products/loki
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