I would agree with above find an older badboy. It will mop the floor with a new cheap one. I would personally look for an Ayre k1xe or k3 or a canary 800 pair. The old classe Dr series would be great a threshold fet 10e etc get yourself a top pf the line older unit.
Budget preamp with quality volume control
Dear Audiogoners,
I used to be a firm believer that the signal path should be as short as possible and, as such, I have been using the two-channel system without a dedicated preamp. For a long period of time, I have relied on the digital attenuator in DAC for volume control, knowing the digital attenuator would compress the dynamic range of the sound. Therefore, I switch the volume control on DAC to the fixed mode, bypass the digital attenuation and use the unity gain knob in the back of the power amp for volume control. Depending on the music recording level, however, sometimes I need to turn the unity gain control way down to get proper sound level. This is particularly painful when I use the full-balance connection because of the double voltage gain.
In short, I am looking for a budgetary preamp with quality volume control that either has relay switch stepped control or precise potentiometer for left-right channel match to curb the issue. I try to summarize important (to me) performance catgories as best I can for various good sounding preamp I know (with or without headphone amp/dac) as shown below. It is found the Schiit Magnius happens to have the highest performance ratio. However, I am pretty sure that I likely miss other good performers due to my limited knowledge and would like to solicit for your inputs. Your kind assistance is appreciated.
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- 80 posts total
I was looking through this post and thought - if I am only using the ONE digital source - would I really need a pre-amp at all? After all, a preamp deals with the switching of inputs (and I only have the one input) and also gain control but there's enough gain on a digital device anyway (broadly speaking). I would need an attenuator - not a pre-amp (if you can distinguish the two) - so perhaps a high quality passive will do for me with no selector knob and only attenuator control. However, I would still need this single pot to be of high quality too - anyone know of something? Ideally I would like a r/c attenuator if that's possible. |
That has been a question asked by many over the years. Having enough voltage is one piece of the puzzle but impedance compatibility to drive the cables and power amplifier is another piece that is not addressed by simply putting an attenuator in the signal chain. In short, many have found that preamps having a high'ish impedance input and low'ish impedance output to the power amplifiers seem to do a better job of preserving tonal qualities, dynamics, and drive, compared to using an attenuator alone. A unity gain buffer following the attenuator can do the job fine in cases like yours where there is enough voltage coming out of the source. |
Thanks - this company thinks otherwise due to how short the cables for interconnects are etc ... read here: http://www.rothwellaudioproducts.co.uk/html/the_truth_about_passive_pre-am.html
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- 80 posts total