The Best Preamp is no Preamp?

In practice, long speaker cables often cause a loss of bass impact and intelligibility of vocals. This is easily measured and demonstrated.

I agree with the above statement!

My speaker cables are < 1 foot.

 

Tortuga Audio....Try one

Tried no preamp for a while. Really liked it for a minute. Bass was good, treble was pretty good. When things got fast it was all together with no definition. I spent about a month on it then moved back. Like it was running out of gas.

I used to avoid a preamp for a long time. A friend told me to try his parasound pld/2000 and I could not believe, how much more detail and body it gave to the music. Now I replaced the parasound with a Hegel Pre and I cannot believe it can be any better. Give it a try and you will hear the positive abilities of a preamp.

What power amps were you using? 

I think that in the absolute majority of cases a good pre active will bring advantages in sound quality, in addition to being perhaps essential for some systems that need that extra gas besides the volume control. But in my particular case, as I have plenty of power and use exclusively the volume of the HQPlayer software integrated into Roon, in principle I don't need a pre. The decision to use it or not was difficult, but after months of alternating I'm choosing not to use it. Main advantages: absolute background silence, discreet improvement in transparency and focus, without prejudice to dynamics, simplification and greater security in the event of a power failure that has already given me some scares. Normally I need to turn on the pre Don Sachs II tube at least 30 seconds before the amplifier and when turning off always in reverse order. The pre provides a slightly warmer tone. My system: PC with HQP/Roon and modem in another room --- ethernet cable (10m) to audio room with urendu/T+A DAC8 DSD line out (no volume control) to Amp Accuphase P-6100 (which has 4 gain positions). The DAC has 2V/22 ohms out and the Accuphase 20Kohms input and 110 W/c/8 ohms output. Audiopax Mandolin II speakers (91 db sensitivity). 

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!

@r27y8u92 

 

What is your system? There is a place under your userID to put photos and ID your components.

‘What was your system and what did you swap out?

 

This would be really helpful to understand your experience.

Well if you want to experiment with a good active preamp it has probably never been cheaper.You can try /buy one of the cheap Chinese clone preamps like the FM Acoustics 155 copies for about $300 on Ali Express.That is s a superb sounding  active preamp in my opinion.It may not improve the sound of every power amp because there are always preamp/power amp synergies  but suspect it will be a considerable improvement on most .I am talking at least $5000 preamp sound quality.The real thing sold for more like $20,000.

I would normally not recommend things like that but for the sake of killing off the myth that the best preamp is no preamp it is arguably justifiable. I believe that is also an older design on which the patent has expired so anybody can copy it.

Best preamp is the one that brings out the best in your setup.

 

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

---------------------------------------

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.

 

@r27y8u92

 

Thank you for sharing you system. This is really helpful in assessing how pertinent your experience is to a readers system since we all have grossly different systems. 
 

It is great that you experienced such an improvement. Good going.

 

 

I have a Sys passive preamp and tried it on quite a few power amps.It does not get the best out of any of those amps compared to a decent active preamp.

Hello All,

My current system consists of:

Quicksilver v4 monoblocks using GEC Ki88's (new issue)

The Truth preamp  or Bottlehead BeePre running GEC 300b tubes

VPI HW-19 Mk IV with a Woody String Theory tonearm and a Soundsmith Zephyr cartridge.

A Bottlehead Eros phone preamp

A Cinemag 1254 SUT

A OPPO 205 CD Player

Speakers are DIY Watt Puppies

I switched from the Eros preamp to the Truth preamp.  While the Eros was very nice it had a little glare in the treble.  The Truth cleared that  up plus the bass was deeper and more defined, the soundstage was bigger and more precise.  So in my system it definitely improved the sound quality.  

Arthur Salvatore @ High-EndAudio.com gives a very good explanation of why this might be.  He also gives a good explanation of the technological aspects of the Truth preamp.  

Hope this helps.

Richard

 

 

I tried this in the late eighties, when I had a Mission PCM CD player that had a volume control on its remote. I had been playing this through a Musical Fidelity integrated amp, but just for fun one day, I got out its predecessor, the original NAD 3020 which allowed input direct to the power amp stage. The difference was absolutely striking in terms of increased clarity. Because the CD player reverted to max. volume every time it was switched off, I looked at passive preamps. The simplest and cheapest was a QED* switch and potentiometer that took one input and passed it through unchanged, and one that went through the potentiometer. So this added one switch, one potentiometer and an extra pair of interconnects into the system. I could hear it, or was sure I could. Not as good, but more convenient. I also tried a QED remote controlled passive pre-amp that had several inputs, all volume controlled. It wasn’t better.

But moving to other CD players, as they were developing and improving quickly in those days, I had to use one or other passive preamp as none had volume controls. Once I decided to reactivate my LP collection I had to move back to active preamps, and found the sound livelier and more dynamic, even if less starkly clear. I don’t really think now of one or other as better, but just different.

*I wonder what happened to QED? A British manufacturer of very high quality accessories in those days.