Many preamps have subwoofer circuitry with high pass filters and gain control too. The switching ability, volume control, remote control and multiple analog and digital inputs/outputs are very important to me. The pleasure of a tube preamp allows for a different dimension in sound quality too.
Preamp - what's the purpose?
Intentionally dumb question...
I've heard various 5-15W tube amps in my room. EL84, 300B, etc. They all have input stages and the output stage. I send them a line-level signal from a DAC.
Sitting a few meters away from my loudspeakers, the first watt alone gives me roughly 80db of volume. I think these amps are biased to expect the line level signal directly. Why wouldn't the designer do that?
So what's the point of adding a pre-amp? Why do people do it?
thanks in advance