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.

krelldog

Showing 1 response by clearthinker

@arcticdeth 

'The Preamp' eh?

Some of us with remember The Preamp from the early 1980s, a very small lightweight unit with a lit-up red company logo that was Musical Fidelity's very first product.  I wonder if Roger knows about it.  I bought one.  Very sweet sounding but the pots went windy after a few years - guess Anthony Michaelson didn't spend enough money.  Other than that I was happy with it until I moved on to a used SP10 that was miles out of its league and, at nearly 20x the price jolly well should be.  I have stayed with AR ever since.