seeking recommendations for a preamp


I've been lurking a while, but this is my first post. I will appreciate any advice given, and thank you for reading this.

My Kenwood C2 bit the dust. I have lost the right channel, and the input selector is also going out. I'm looking to replace it, and upgrade quite a bit. The wife has given me a $2500 budget, new or used is ok. I listen to Vinyl a lot, as well as my echo dot which is also plugged into my preamp with a headphone to RCA adapter. I'll list my other equipment now.

Completely rebuilt Altec A7-500 with all new parts from GPA
JBL L200s
Kenwood M1D amplifier
Homebrew rebuilt Monoblocks from Zenith consoles with EL84/6BQ5
Yamaha EQ
Thorens TD 318 with an Ortofon cart. Unsure which one as I am at work
SVS PB16 ultra

The room is 16 wide by 20 deep. I primarily listen to the Altecs and tube amps with the SVS sub taking up the slack in the bass from the A7s. Sometimes I listen to the JBLs driven by the Kenwood M1D. I notice that the echo dot sounds a lot better than my turntable, so I know I must be needing a better phono stage. I've tried swapping out turntables with a couple of Dual 1229s with Shure M97XE carts that Bill at fixmydual has gone through thoroughly so It's not isolated to my Thorens. I guess I' surprised that the $30 Echo Dot sounds so much better.  

I admit I don't have the best cables, and will upgrade those as I can. I feel like the preamp is the heart of the system so I want to make a good choice. I love Macintosh, based purely off emotion, but don't know if it's the best choice for my situation. I do not have a local shop to audition, and none of my friends are into audio. What preamps should I be looking at ??
128x128adrianleewelch

Showing 3 responses by atmasphere

How does one diagnose a standing wave ?
@adrianleewelch  If there is bass in other places in the room or the house but not at the listening chair then you have a standing wave causing cancellation at the listening chair.

Room correction is something I’ve always been curious about though. I feel like I should have tighter bass with the SVS. It can be a little loose and muddy at times.
Rather than room correction (which can’t fix a standing wave in the room) consider something called a Distributed Bass Array. The idea is simple- by having multiple subs operating **below** 80Hz you can break up any standing waves in the room and thus get good bass.


If a standing wave is killing bass at the listening position(s) all room correction will do is try to put more power into that frequency. But a standing wave causes cancellation (IOW is a null point) so any amount of power you put into that frequency won’t change things.

The best DBA I know of (and one of the best subs around as a result) is the Swarm made by Audiokinesis.
Seek a preamp the uses 6SN7s in the line section- that is the best tube for that job. You can find such that include a phono section within your budget.

Dynaco made a preamp called the PAS-3; if you find one of those used it will likely have to be refurbished. But you can get that done and have it substantially upgraded to be a giant killer, also well within your budget.