I am at RMAF and saw the bespoke passive preamp that George posted the link to. It is quite a piece of art, has very smooth input selection and 47 step volume control, and both balanced and RCA connections. Unfortunately cannot judge the sound because it was only on a table display. Based on the view under the hood I can say it is well manufactured with proprietary wound transformers but at the price point it sure makes me pleased I own high value passives like the Lightspeed and Slagle AVC.
Is no preamp really better that a good preamp?
Hi All, I have PS Audio gear, and both my DAC and my phono section have enough gain to run directly to the amp. Is this really the optimal arrangement, or might I actually get better sound by adding a good preamp, say a Cary or a Modwright tube unit, to the mix. Thanks in advance.
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Interestingly, Paul McGowan, designer/manufacturer of the OP's DAC, has just in the past few days been posting thoughts on the very question being discussed here in his blog at the PS Audio site. Some excerpts: My adamant stance against inserting a preamp between a high quality DAC like DirectStream and the power amplifier should be no surprise to readers of this blog. As well, my subsequent turn around embracing the exact opposite should lift no eyebrows either. But why would inserting an extra piece of gear in the signal path sound better than a more direct approach? How could this make sense? ....Makes sense to me. So if Paul McGowan can do an about face on this issue, at least under some circumstances, I guess I can too :-) But I believe that in general the opinion I expressed in my first post in this thread still stands: 09-23-15: AlmargRegards, -- Al |
I'll go along with that also Al, 1: The dac's power supply for the output stage as PM states is not up to it. 2: If the dac output buffer is not low output impedance <300ohms, as some very weak tube output dac are today some I've seen up to 3000ohms. 3: The impedance load as seen by the dac output is so severe that only something like a Krell preamp's output stage at 1ohm output impedance is able to drive it. Cheers George |
Thanks, George. I suppose an additional possibility is that high frequency noise resulting from a ground loop condition between a DAC and a power amp could enter the DAC's output circuit and find its way via grounds, power supplies, stray capacitances, etc. to the D/A converter device and/or its surrounding circuitry, causing an increase in jitter. Of course, depending on the specific designs introducing a preamp between the DAC and the power amp could either resolve such a problem, introduce such a problem, or make no difference. Regards, -- Al |
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