Matching Pre-Amp to Amp


I have a pair of McIntosh MC 601's and my CJ pre-amp is malfunctioning (I do plan to send it for repair, but it's 20 years old). I'm debating buying a newer pre-amp. Any suggestions as to an appropriate pairing with an eye to value (the law of diminishing returns sets in and my resources are not unlimited)?

Thanks for any and all intelligent and reasonable responses. 
nab2

Showing 1 response by harrylavo

Here's some generalities that hopefully might help:

  • Most Transistor amplifiers (not all) have a relatively low input impedance and higher gain (than tube amps).
  • Most transistor preamps have an accordingly low impedance and lower gain (than tube preamps).
  • Tube amps almost always have a quite high input impedance but relatively low gain.
  • Tube preamps accordingly usually have higher output impedances (higher than many transistor amps are comfortable with).  They also tend to have higher gain (which matches the lower gain of tube amps).

So if your amp is a all-tube MAC amp, it probably has a sufficient input impedance for any preamp.

If your amp is a transistor amp then the impedance may be marginally too low for a match with some tube preamps.

Ideally you want the input impedance of your amplifier to be 10X the output of your preamp at any (or at least most) frequencies.  Anything 5X or below should be avoided.  Thus if you model amp really does have a 22K input impedance at 1K, then you need a preamp with an output impedance no higher than 2k at that same frequency.  So check the CJ's output impedance, or any other preamp you may think of pairing.