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Is no preamp the best preamp of all?

As an experiment I hooked up my OPPO BDP-95 (which has a volume control) directly to my amp. I was very pleasantly surprised to hear a significant improvement in clarity and sound quality. Typically I have the analog outputs on the OPPO running through my preamp in Analog Direct. I have heard that the circuitry within preamps can cause cross-talk in the analog signal, deteriorating the quality of the signal. So, would having no preamp (and therefore no other circuits to interfere with the signal) be better than an expensive analog or digital preamp running in Analog Direct? I am not really interested in Room Correction or DSP of any kind. I was considering purchasing a Bel Canto PRe6 (which I've read is excellent for multichannel analog), but would it be better to just have the OPPO running directly to the power amp?
128x128cdj123
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buff's avatar
buff
210 posts
 
I prefer a Preamp over none.

As mentioned quality is key though.

I have conducted experiments running direct from Bel Canto dac3, PS Audio Perfect Wave system and Esoteric SA50 - in all cases prefer the preamp in the signal path (Plinius M8 used to conduct tests)

****dealer disclaimer - I sell all above besides Bel Canto********
jdoris
972 posts
 
I had the opposite experience. Inserting an old Adcom pre I had in the garage seemed to be an improvement over the volume control of my PerfectWave DAC. I doubt there's a rule.

John
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,468 posts
 
Be very careful not using Vandersteen's high pass filter. If the slope is wrong you can give yourself a very expensive repair of the midrange's
daverz
487 posts
 
I found going direct from my DAC to my amps and using my Squeezebox volume control to be a huge improvement in frequency extension and transparency. I can even do the highpass filtering needed by my Quatros in the digital domain on the Squeezebox server, which is also a huge improvement.

I do need to figure out how to eventually integrate analog back into the system (probably with a switchbox of some kind).

I've seen several several people state that more than about 10 dB of digital attenuation is "bad". In the evening I'm typically using 20-25 dB of attenuation or more. I haven't noticed any evil effects. I tried some Rothwell inline attenuators (XLR version), but prefer the sound without them.
inna
7,296 posts
 
Trebejo, your analogy or correlation is the most intriguing.
tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
2,588 posts
 
If your current system sounds better without a preamp then that's the way you should listen to it. If you find a preamp that makes your system sound better, use it.

There are plenty of people who don't use a preamp and plenty who prefer having a preamp in their system. There's no one answer for everybody.
trebejo
102 posts
 
No preamp is better than bad preamp (just like spouses).
hifihvn
943 posts
 
It doesn't always work this way, otherwise you'd see most everyone here doing it. Even the ones that spend over 500k for their system.
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