@krelldog I’ve not yet heard an active preamp that didn’t color the sound. If you ever ran your source direct into your amplifier at unity gain vs it going thru an active linestage, you would most likely hear flatter, colder and more analytical sound. A good linestage would help round some of the rough edges off, paint a more layered and dimensional soundstage, do few good things to the mids without losing clarity and most likely improve the bass. All the good colorations. I don’t think your preamp is an overkill by any means.
Whats the ultimate goal with your pre amp ?
I have a great pre amp its a Pass labs XP-22. Its a great compliment to the rest of my gear-Pass 250.8-Pass XP-17 phono pre-VPI Prime Signature TT-Auralic Aries 2.1 Streamer- PS Audio Directstream MK2--Harbeth 40.2 Anniversaries.
My question is- At what point is a pre amp overkill ? Example- In terms of performance- How close does a Parasound JC-2 get to a Pass XP-22 ?
In my mind I want the Pre to be uncolored..silent...and have flexibility/with XLR's in and out. Does or should it cost 10K to achieve this ?
The point of this post is to gather opinions on what other audiophile thoughts are .
Thanks in advance for any and all opinions.