Why some preamps does not play music? Cold?

Oh yes, sorry forgot about that.

Fuses and direction change can miraculously improve all types of an audio system's ailments in huge ways, so say their users.

Cheers George    

Surprised he wasn't told just buy a voodoo fuse, which fixes problems.

Cheers George

I don’t agree with you that a passive pre is the proverbial "straight piece of wire".

I didn’t say it was, but it is closer than any active preamp can get. The only way to get closer is to go direct to poweramp with a source with one that has a digital domain volume control. But this way you have to use the digital domain volume control at or above 75% of full output,. If you don’t you start to what’s called "bit strip" that is loosing resolution from EG: 16bit to 14bit to 12bit. the lower you go below 75% of full volumme

Cheers George

dvavc

A Quote from the master Nelson Pass

Nelson Pass,

We’ve got lots of gain in our electronics. More gain than some of us need or want. At least 10 db more.

Think of it this way: If you are running your volume control down around 9 o’clock, you are actually throwing away signal level so that a subsequent gain stage can make it back up.

Routinely DIYers opt to make themselves a “passive preamp” - just an input selector and a volume control.

What could be better? Hardly any noise or distortion added by these simple passive parts. No feedback, no worrying about what type of capacitors – just musical perfection.

And yet there are guys out there who don’t care for the result. “It sucks the life out of the music”, is a commonly heard refrain (really - I’m being serious here!). Maybe they are reacting psychologically to the need to turn the volume control up compared to an active preamp.

All active preamps dvavc, have a colourations/distortion of their own, and all sound different to each other. None sound like the "mythical" "straight piece of wire".

If you want to hear what your source sounds like without these active preamp colouration/distortions you should try to use your source into your poweramp via a passive preamp, the closest to a "straight piece of wire" sound.

But for that to work it’s best the source output impedance should be low (1kohm/1000ohms or less) which most are. The passive pre should be a 10kohm passive, and the poweramp should be 33kohm or higher input impedance which most are. And interconnects from the passive pre to the poweramp should be 2mt or less and low capacitance (100pf per ft or less) which most good ones are.

This then will give you the most uncoloured, dynamic way of hearing your source, you may not like it, but that is the sound of what your source is without any active preamp colourations/distortions changing the sources sound.

If all parameters above meet the requirements try this. This is a $49 10kohm passive pre you can try, and even send back. And they have "B" stock as well.

http://schiit.com/products/sys

Cheers George