I have a controversial question about hardware.
Does a preamp amplifier make sense?
Or is it better to have several source devices?
I have in my chain as an example a Dac and two amplifiers both go via the internal Dac to the amplifier.
So one goes from the Dac via Rca or the other via XLR to the amplifier.
Is this already a kind of preamp function?
Then there is still controversy between SS and tube preamplifier which is better or makes more sense?
Apart from that, what is the potential of a preamp?
I googled it once but the answers were rather mediocre in that respect.
If you search for it, you will find a lot of Made in China.
Disclaimer: I have extremely limited experience with preamps and I know there’s also a fair bit of disagreement on whether you need one or not.
Here’s the thing, some people think that it depends on whether the amplifier has alot of power preamps help on regulating it etc meaning that if you use a preamp with a amplifier that dosen’t have too much power it wouldn’t make a difference while one with tons of juice would actually make a difference. I can’t say I have enough experience with either to choose a hill to die on but with what little experience I do have a Preamplifier absolutely is worth intergrating into your speaker system. I would go as far as to say that a preamplifier is a must within your speaker system. It really gives heft to the music, upgrades technical sonic abilities and other things. When it comes to the SS and Tube Preamps it’s probably the same as it is with regular amps, people who like tubes will like the Tube qualities that tube preamps do etc.
Depends on the chain, in some cases it can be critical, in others you might not want one
Assuming the dac doesn’t have volume control or a preamp function, no. That being said, you already have that covered internally inside each amp basically
Both can be good, both can be bad, just make sure it’s a quality pre and properly matches your system (and tastes)
I know you are planning to put this in a headphone setup correct? Most headphone amps aren’t exactly designed to have a preamp inserted between them, and from my experience it’s hit or miss if a preamp is actually worthwhile in most headphone chains. The problem is that good preamps are expensive, and it’s hard to justify the cost of a good preamp in a headphone chain because you’d probably have more sonic benefit putting that money toward a nicer amp or dac, when it comes to headphones (assuming you aren’t very very high up on the amp and dac ladder already). I personally do use a preamp (sorta) in my headphone chain these days, and it does give me benefits to attempt to bypass the internal lesser volume control inside the headphone amps, but I probably wouldn’t feel the same if I was running lower end gear, and the cost of the preamp is about the same as the headphone amp itself
For 2ch, it’s potentially a very different story, when you are driving power amps (which are designed to be fed by a preamp), the preamp can massively affect performance so don’t skimp on it and place good importance on it as well. If you can effectively bypass a volume control on an integrated amp a nicer preamp also might make sense (especially to get around I/O limitations too)
Mostly anything you insert between your dac and amp can color the sound, an active pre will as well regardless of it’s topology, and a passive one can too. Regarding the cheap tube buffers, personally not a fan, don’t think a lot of them sound good and while they change the sound it’s typically for the worse from a fidelity aspect imo, I’d rather not willingly insert a bottleneck or weak link right in-between everything just to add “tube sound” (which is more cheap tube sound, not good tube sound). If it’s a high quality tube preamp or higher end buffer (haven’t seen too many of those) then you might be better off, just make sure if you add something in-between your chain, make sure it’s at least the same level of quality as the rest of your chain
Mon’s response here makes a lot of sense in a way that I hadn’t even considered before. Two channel amps expect a preamp and headphone amps don’t. That may be all the explanation needed.
But like with everything else, with a big DEPENDS inserted into the explanation. lol
It’s a volume control and input switcher. Most have gain, some are passive (no gain).
The end.
Do you need it? If the answer to one or more of these three questions is “yes” then you do:
Do I need to switch sources?
Do I need volume control?
Do I have an amplifier with very low gain?
The first question is obvious.
The second depends on your amplifier. All headphone amps have a volume control. Some speaker amps (integrateds) have volume control.
The third question is a bit hazy and depends on your equipment. Headamps generally have plenty of gain (for headphones). Speaker amps generally have plenty of gain - there are exceptions like the First Watt amps which tend to have low gain. First Watt amps tend to do best with highly efficient speakers.
Those are the rules of thumb. Beyond that, it’s a matter of adding flavor.
Hello,
And thank you for the knowledgeable reply, I appreciate it.
And also answered the omen very much.
I was thinking something like this could also be counterproductive.
I don’t really plan on adding it to the headphone chain.
It was more a question that came up.
At the moment, I’m putting the Odam’s capacitors on the Feliks Euforia and also the ones for the preamp section.
I have noticed that when I use the preamp output to the Denon 800ne it is now noticeably better than before I changed the capacitors.
I was wondering how it would be the other way round and what the advantages would be.
The Singxer Sda2 is more of an all-in-one and not a standalone Dac, so it has a volume control but the output can be set between variable and fixed.
That’s why I assume that it almost serves as a “preamp” or could be regarded as such.
Is that the right way to understand it?
But it hasn’t bothered me so far, even if it were.
If it did, it might be worth considering when buying the next dac that it tends to be more of a standalone than an all-in-one.
Without wanting to go too deep again, the Mcintosh mha 200 has a strange volume control.
The answer and reaction from Mcintosh is that they say to leave the potentiometer alone and use a preamp.
Presumably to avoid the whole mishap and to indirectly encourage the customer to buy a preamp.
Even though there are other ways to solve this.
But such statements alone tempt one to consider a preamp even though it would not be necessary or does not have to be.if you understand?
On the other hand, if you want to use something like this in a headphone amplifier.
What do I look for when buying apart from the price?
Or what would be important?
I am aware that it can colour the sound and that there are devices that do this.
Theoretically, it should be completely “neutrally” tuned.
Basically that’s all it is, but this thought is initially what lead me to not place much importance on them in 2ch, but ended up becoming a massive bottleneck until I tried nicer preamps later on and realized what was holding the system back. It’s a very simple job but apparently very difficult to get right and can affect things greatly in some systems from my experience but ymmv
This is about an hour away and likely would make my 2 channel and hp setup better in many regards. Really had my heart set on a 300b hp amp but perhaps this would solve many problems.
This was basically my journey in preamps for 2CH as well, I used lower priced/passive models for a long time on the logic, you wanted as pure a signal as possible to the power amps. When I did finally hear a higher end preamp in my system I was floored by how much impact it had for the better.
It’s on my list of I can’t explain why outside of handwavy explanations I don’t believe.
As a point of correction to some ones earlier post, you can get transformer based passive pre’s that do have gain.
I ran a Creek OBH-12 (I found in a box) in my headphone system for a while for source selection and remote volume control, but it was about convenience, not quality.
They just tend to be pretty expensive for a passive, well at least the TVC and AVC I’ve looked at that, although there were some not terribly expensive ones that I had liked (if that’s what you mean)
It’s a matter of impedance matching between source and amplifier. While a passive potentiometer is the closest to a simple wire (it’s basically a resistor) it doesn’t present the source output stage with a high enough impedance. Think of it like a headphone or speaker that has too low of an impedance for your amp. Your amp will not perform at its best. The exact same thing happens to the output stage of your source.
An active preamp will do volume while presenting the source with a very high impedance and at the same time its output will have a very low impedance relative to the amplifier’s input.
What effect a preamp has on sound (outside if its basic duty as an impedance tool) is down to the same thing as in all other components - engineering tradeoffs, design quality, parts quality.
Btw, the reason headamps can usually get away with just a passive pot vs active preamplification is that they tend to be very close to the source. So the DAC’s output stage doesn’t need to “push” the signal through long interconnects. In a 2 channel system the amps are often several or more feet away from the source equipment.
I wish more higher end headphone amps would give you the option to just have a direct line in. Like the aic-10, egoista 845, oor, etc give you an option to entirely bypass the volume control to basically act as a power amp and be fed with an external preamp. It’s a helpful feature to have if you already have something more capable at controlling the volume upstream so you can take advantage of it properly. Or actually just sell power amp versions of their amps, and have them be cheaper since now there’s no potentially pricey volume control inside the amp (this is assuming one would have an already very nice preamp to do that lol, would likely result in people grabbing the amp then using a garbage passive pre with it or something and then complaining about the sound, mfg probably don’t want that)
Sure you can just max the volume on an amp and use an external pre which is good enough, but it would still probably be better if it wasn’t going though a 2nd volume control in the first place
That was one interesting design choice on the Cayin C9. I can’t say I use it much, but it’s a cool option to have for some harder to drive stuff, while using mostly my P6P as the source and line out pre-amp.