2. amps-preamps
  3. 1074903995

Won't preamps become obsolete?

I'm in the market for a new preamp because I want to upgrade from my Conrad Johnson PV10A. I listen mostly to vinyl but some CD and hopefully SACD some day so I need a preamp to integrate sources. As I look at the used preamp ads on A'gon, however, I notice more and more people saying that they are selling their preamp because they are going directly from a cd player with volume control into an amp. As vinyl wanes (never with me!) will the preamp follow suit or become more oriented towards integrating home theatre digital video and audio sources?
jyprez

Showing 2 responses by marakanetz

marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
If we look a couple of decades back the preamp was only meant to be for RIAA phono preamplification.
The line sources such as tuners and tape decks were connected directly to the amplifier that is nowdays integrated ones.
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
If we look onto many amps made today,
They already have a neccessary preamplification especially ones with differential input stages.
To have a few dB larger sencitivity may have an extra pre-drive stage.
In reality it's piece of cake to make from power amp an integrated one and build the volume controll after the drive or pre-drive stage so the issue with impedance matching will go away for good.
The minimalistic line preamps suchas McCormack TLC, RLD or Micro Line Drive will not become obsolete as they're just buffers with unity gain and extra inputs with input selector. To have integrated monoblocks is not so convenient anyway. They provide the minimal path for the signal interface.
More to discover