I’d at least try it and see imo, although with the sfd-2 I’m not sure if it would be the best result or basically equivalent to rca out (know the xlr out is better sounding from my experience, but I don’t really remember trying to convert it to se). But it’s cheap enough were I’d give it a try. Benchmark makes a decent cable for that to try, although you’ll likely want a better cable later on
The low output of the sfd actually is beneficial in this case since you don’t have to worry about too hot of an output
I just wouldn’t want any benchmark source gear in my chain whatsoever lol. But I think that’s a good example that you’ll basically be spending the cost of the dac on a pre as well so that will be an extensive endeavor, although going the preamp route you could get an improvement in bypassing the volume potentially in the ec or stratus. It’s just going to be expensive, but there are a lot of options, depends on how you want to tilt the chain and how much you want to spend. At some point, you might just be better off going for a dac that does better native out of single ended that’s an upgrade to the sfd
You could, but that also ramps up cost quite alot, and that’s going to noticeably color the sound although that could be beneficial or not depending on what you end up preferring, but if reasonably spec’d it would likely end up cheaper than a good preamp still
For this price worth a try, guess it is more a fear of shorting the dac or amp which could rightly be in my head and not real.
Ouch
I will interpret that as not the right option
That is the goal once I sell my TT2/HMS stack, money will go to a modern DAC such as the totaldac, Bricasti M1SE, or another DAC around that level.
The idea of the pre-amp to handle this also helps me my multiple source and output needs. The above amps are three out of ten I currently own. Yeah I have a hoarding fetish…
Definitely increases cost if I go with Audio Note, the coloring is my main concern and it is one of those things where I may have to give it a go with say the Lundhaul transformers as they are priced decently. I have a friend who can make an enclosure at cost and have a brother in law who is an EE to wire it all up for me. Hence why I have this option under consideration.
Still does not help my multiple input/output issues. I have a Goldpnt switch box with stepped attenuator, it is okay but not transparent as expected.
So that’s always a potential concern, but I’ve never had it happen lol. I’d assume it depends on how you make the cable, sometimes they’ll float the 3rd pin, sometimes they’ll short the 3rd pin to the 1st pin, generally I’d assume the 3 floating is the safer option, but on some devices tying 3 to 1 might be better, hard to say for sure. I’d personally go floating 3rd before shorting it
I don’t like benchmark stuff but some do, I just think while it’s got nice cleanliness and control, that’s mostly all it has going for it, feel like it’s not natural and lacking a decent bit underneath for the money.
, that’s really generally the best way to handle this solution, just get something that natively works lol
Preamps can be a reasonable solution then lol, just will be pricey to get something that truly fits the level of your chain
Might as well then lol
Most transparent sounding switch I’ve heard is a manley skipjack but it’s expensive for a switch lol. But really if you are already running into switch issues, getting a nice preamp really might be the way to go lol
Let me think what might fit your setup well in that regard, I haven’t really messed with pairing a DNA with a preamp before, same for pass (simply because it’s a really nice pre itself lol)
Hey this might be a dumb solution, but why not run the pass as the preamp? Go the cable xlr to rca way from the sfd to the pass (or transformer), then use the pass as a preamp to the dna and bypass the dna pot (just turn it up all the way for now) and see how you think it sounds, and then use that to figure out how you might want a preamp to sound in your chain
This might end up needing it’s own topic, because I’m going to be in this boat as well. The MSB Discrete that I bought is balanced only. Not an issue with the Oor, but once I get the MZ3 back from WaveTheory I’ll need a way to connect them. Should I just go the cable route, or look at an active pre that can convert?
This is not the first time I have heard this description from previous owners of the headphone amp version of the line stage.
I expect this to be an investment option, hence willing to put money towards it. Other option is manage the old fashion way of inserting and pulling out cables to keep the signal as direct as possible.
I am a bit lazy (and have some physical impairments too at the moment)
This is a really good idea! I have yet to play with the Pass preamp and been looking for a reason to play around with it. If the cable jacks up the Pass, it is under warranty though that might void it…Anyway, can be fixed by Pass in one form or another. Thanks for this suggestion!
I thought the Manley SkipJack had been discontinued, though it may be something worth looking at. Pricing if I recall was around $1000
If you were serious about the dac, you could just send it to msb and have them swap it with the SE card since it’s modular, but don’t know how that process works and how much it costs. I’d always try the cable route first imo, it’s just the easier option and can yield better sound for cheaper depending on how you go about it and the equipment at hand
That’s what I’m going off of, I’ve only heard their power amp and headphone amp, but not been a fan and not understood the hype in some areas lol. Not really a fan of their dacs either considering what else exists in the current market
Might have been, don’t recall, and yes that pricing is accurate from memory
Gotcha, well if you end up keeping it over the unity, I’d get the cards swapped, but for the time being the cable route should be fine enough unless you’re jonesing to spend a decent bit for a preamp of a similar level. Honestly want to say the single ended output card actually just has a pair of transformers on the outputs to convert to se lol
I can actually see why people liked it though. The added cleanliness and bite was appreciated which other amps didn’t do that well in the range, and it’s in a price range where there’s not many amps that drive the susvara to what people expect. It’s an amp that rides on wow factor and that’s going to make some think they’re actually getting what the susvara can do with that amp. But really put it on a more appropriate setup and it’s very clear how it’s very lacking lol.
That’s likely due to rising costs of the relays they use, don’t think they’d hike just to make more profit for such a niche product they’ve been selling so long lol (but you never know I guess)
Now that my Mini Aca is finished I am trying to decide whether to go with active or passive preamp. I’ve done a lot of reading and watching and thinking but I still can’t decide between a passive with a very good attenuator and an active, such as the Elekit TU-8500.
Well if you wanted to stay in theme, you could always build the amp camp preamp lol, but otherwise really depends on what you want out of the amps and what sound you’re mainly after. From my experience, I do think a lot of the passive preamps I’ve tried with aca were underwhelming or off sounding, so I’d be more inclined to go active personally with an aca. Sometimes it was an impedance thing since iirc it’s only 10kohm input impedance which isn’t ideal for a lot of passives, and even if you made sure it wasn’t an issue in a passive build it just felt more soulless than actives with the unit, really seems like it was designed more to be driven with an active pre. For which active pre, it would somewhat depend on how you want to lean things overall, and also how much you’d really want to spend, and if you’d favor diy or something more prebuilt
I think I want to avoid the ACA preamp as I find the Pass amps to generally lean warm and too much warmth gets a bit much. I’ve been shuffling dacs and ended up pairing the JNOG with the Mini as it gives it some balance and sweetness.So I’d like a preamp to be pretty neutral. Ideally it would also add a phono preamp.
I’ve been looking at the Elekit because I do enjoy DIY but also as I have found it very difficult to find any active preamps under 1000. Plenty of integrated amps but no purely line preamps.
Makes sense, although I will say that the pass preamps tend to be more on the neutral side of things, but their amps tend to be on the warmer side of things, but I’ve never personally heard an acp so I can’t say for sure. I’m personally not that experienced with a lot of DIY designs (especially preamps), a cheaper active one I can think of was the akitika pr102 which was decent for what it costs to build, although I never had a ton of time with it personally but it was reasonably neutral and didn’t think there were any glaring problems. I do myself tend to favor tube preamps since I think they’re more interesting in sound a lot of the time so looking for a diy/kit tube preamp might be fun. Having heard some elekit stuff I do really like their amps for the money, but I’d also say they’re def on the richer side of things lol
Generally if you’re looking for sub 1k value for an active pre, I’d really just scour the used market and see if there’s anything interesting on there, since there really aren’t that many good, non sketch, active preamps in the price range new imo
For the ones I’m getting in for this specific preamp shootout, most of them basically start at one 1k, with the cheapest ones so far being the truth pre, quicksilver linestage, and ava fet valve (you could also consider one of their cheaper options), but those are still going to overall be above 1k, which is admittedly hard to justify for an aca imo. If you really wanted a cheap neutral pre and weren’t afraid of getting something sketchy, I will say I was still quite impressed with the knock off fm acoustics 155 lol
I know nothing about phono preamps so I can’t say much there. I will say I was under the assumption that’s its generally a better idea to get a nice separate one since a lot of integrated phono pre end up being lackluster, but not experienced enough to really confirm or deny that, I’d just assume it’s similar since that’s how it is for integrated dacs in preamps lol
Oh right @Gothique, this is a really cool kit preamp btw, worth looking into for a tube option (honestly forgot it was a kit lol, pretty affordable for what it is)
@Christof I know its been a minute, but I’m curious about your impressions of the Kara vs the Serene. Your initial impressions seemed to be that the Kara was within punching range of the Serene, but now that you’ve had more time on both has that impression changed? Are your impressions more or less the same as when you compared your Freya+ to Serene?
So I was going back and forth between the Serene and Kara for a little while and settled on the Serene. It’s hard to compare because I have to move around a bunch of cables between listening to each preamp but my impression was that the Serene stages larger and has more detail. It’s also a bit smoother overall. The Kara had a bit more of an intimate presentation and at times seemed to have a bit more texture and slam. I wish there was an easy way to a/b preamps but I haven’t figured that out yet. I’ve noticed across all components I tend to prefer the one with the larger stage size and better imaging. Going back to something that sounds smaller feels a bit claustrophobic almost. So although the Serene may not be better in every way then the Kara the larger stage size makes it easy to choose.
I think the Kara is a little better then the Freya+ in solid state mode although I haven’t done that direct comparison, I’m just thinking about they compare to Serene. In both cases though the Serene staged larger and brought details more forward. However I think the LTA level 2 preamp that I had for a bit was better then all of the other preamps I’ve mentioned here, especially with rolled tubes. I miss that pre a bit especially when paired with the firstwatt amps but I had some functionality issues that made switching to the serene a better choice over all.
, that’s really generally the best way to handle this solution, just get something that natively works lol
(and have some physical impairments too at the moment)