The Best Preamp is no Preamp?

Everybody talks about high quality preamps, which makes over-all sound good. Yes, the pre MAKES (modify) poor sound from poor sources to be good. That means the pre does change the original music signal into slightly different signal. The modified signal would be good to our ears. Do not praise the preamp that makes poor source better. Just blame the poor source. If you have good source (well-recorded CD for example), you can enjoy the music much better with no preamp. Why does tube-based gears make good sound? Just because the tubes tend to add some distortion to the original signal, and the added signal makes our ears pleasing. The added signal is usually even-order frequencies.

Shorter speaker cables make the over-all sound better? I have to laugh at the guy who says that. Inside the speakers, there are very long coils. Due to limited space condition, the coil's physical shape can not be better than that of speaker cables. Compromised long speaker voice coil and very short speaker cable? Usually, the speaker cable length does not matter very much unless the cables run longer than 50 feet.

I removed my preamp, and inserted a volume control. The sound became really better, more clarity. Some people said the increased clarity is something ANALYTICAL. Totally non-sense! So-so grade preamp just simply makes audio signal a little bit dull. If you hear your music more analytical or less full (less bass), then you probably have not hear actual music produced by real performances or concerts. I played Tenor sax, trumpet and flute. The actual sound was ear piercing if you listen them too closely to the players.

Warm sound (a little bass, boomy)? No, that's not actual music, that is modified by audio engineers to make sound smooth. If you have many audio sources (CD, tape, phono preamp, etc), then you need a passive preamp which has only a volume controller and a source selector. I am using a potentiometer (=volume control) between a CD player and a power amp. Sound became really better. It looks like there was a big fabric curtain (between me and speakers), and it was removed!

To ghdprentice:

My system is as follows.

CD player   Musical Fidelity A3.2 CD (made in 2003 in England)

Turn table   Sansui SR 929 (Denon DL-103R)

Preamp      Onkyo Integra P304 (ca. 33 years old, Japan)

Power amp  Yamaha MX-1 (old, old, 200 watt per channel)

                Cayin 860 mono blocks (4 x EL 34 each)

Speaker      Vienna Mahler (120 lbs each)

All cables     Monster (interconnect, speaker)

Vol. Control  SCHIIT SYS

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I don't use the Onkyo as a preamp any more, but use for only phono section.

I used to own CJ tube preamp, Plinius preamp, Brystone Preamp, Jeff Roland preamp, etc. But the onkyo does its jot close to the preamps by 90-95%. So, I sold all preamps, keep the Onkyo only. Actually, 2 years ago, I purchased the Onkyo P304 one more from ebay. I used both Onkyos. I made one Onkyo as one channel combining two channel using mono-making Y-cable. Anyway, using 2 Onkyos, S/N (signal to noise ratio) was better, but I found no advantage regarding sound quality.

 

Using the SCHIIT vol. control as a passive preamp, I found my music became a lot better.

(1) Mid - high      very clear, not shrill, not analytical, just like piano is playing in front of me, Trumpet = I could hear metallic feeling just like when I was in high school brass band,...

(2) Bass       exaggerated booming is gone, but true bass from the source was heard. If you like some sound (boob, boob, boom), then I can not discuss my feeling with you.

(3) True to the source music       less component means less additives to the sound. So, if the source music is great, I can feel great. If not good, I hear un-musical sound.

 

I can still remember that Herbert von Karajan said music from CD player was better than that of turntable. He mentioned that to engineers of CD player-developing, 1980s. At the time, so-called audio reviewers said the CD music was so analytical. I think the reviewers barely attended actual concerts, compared to Karajan. Karajan was involved in CD format such as how many minutes in a single CD, etc. I believe Karajan preference (favoring CD against analog) simply because he spent a lot of time in actual performance, not because he was a very famous conductor. 

We have to spend many $ to buy expensive gears.

Expensive power cable = I think this is the most unnecessary item.