Topping Pre90 Switching op amps?


I have found that the pre90, in my system, renders many recordings beautifully transparent and many other recordings thin and brittle. It seems that swapping op amps might be a solution. Has anyone done this? If so kindly report on your experience. 

dbb

I tried about 6 amps on the Topping pre90. There was a volume issue with the following amps and the pre90. It was way too loud and did not have any granularity on the volume settings.

- LSA Voyager 350 GAN

- CODA #8

- KRELL K-300i integrated

- D-Sonic m3a 800s

The following 2 amps sounded very good with the pre90:

- Benchmark AHB2

- Parasound A21+

The last 2 have some gain adjustment that likely was able to deal with the pre90. There are a lot of comments on ASR web site about this volume issue.

I got rid of the pre90 because of this frustration and went back to the Benchmark LA4 preamp, which works with all amps and is also as transparent as the pre90.

I am not a Topping hater; I recently re-bought the Topping D90LE DAC after I sold it previously.

 

 

@yyzsantabarbara 

I had volume issues with my McIntosh MC152 until I changed to the lower input voltage of the RCAs. I left the outputs on XLR and it worked fine. My problem is that it seems to render roughly half of my recordings worse than my regular preamp, a Hegel P30.

If you want the sound of the pre90 without the hassle, then the Benchmark LA4 is the best bet.

If you want the sound of the pre90 without the hassle, then the Benchmark LA4 is the best bet.

True but the price differential was unacceptable.  (I needed 3, now 4.)

Nota bene:  The OP was asking about swapping op-amps in the Pre90, not amps to connect to the Pre90.