Never considered passives and have only used actives or integrateds. I read a lot online and the guys praising passives are not that many. And direct to ampers always seems to lead back to using a preamp again.
Any thoughts on removing a preamp from your system
Hello guys
This is my first post and I have been on Audiogon for a number of years now.
My question to the group is, have any of you removed your preamp completely from your system? Run your front ends straight to your amp? And, what benefits have you noticed, if any.
And finally, if you have used a passive preamp in your system, what are your thoughts on the setup?
I understand one would need to have some sort of "pot" in the signal path to regulate volume.
Herb
This is my first post and I have been on Audiogon for a number of years now.
My question to the group is, have any of you removed your preamp completely from your system? Run your front ends straight to your amp? And, what benefits have you noticed, if any.
And finally, if you have used a passive preamp in your system, what are your thoughts on the setup?
I understand one would need to have some sort of "pot" in the signal path to regulate volume.
Herb
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- 67 posts total
passives have components that can also change the sound such as pots, resistors, transformers, internal wiring. Also except for transformer type passives there impedance changes with volumn setting. As I said before the Sonic Euphoria autotransformer based passive was the best passive I ever used but it had no where near the resolving power of my Shindo. You simply have to try with your own equipment Alan |
I had a good experience some years ago in my sunroom system. I ran a Mark Levinson 390s cd player directly into a Pass Aleph 3 amp, driving a pair of ProAc 1SCs. Supplemented at the low end with a REL subwoofer. Cardas Golden Cross interconnects and biwire speaker wire. The system sounded great. The ML 390s had an analog volume control that preserved the detail of the music and it also had a digital input for another component that could be switched in. No preamp needed. Another combo that worked for me was a bedroom system. My sources were a SAE 8000 fm tuner and a Sony disc player. I used a passive Promethius preamp that used a transformer for volume control, and this fed a Carver M-500t amp connected to a pair of Thiel 3.6s. Not expecting too much, I was surprised at the smoothness and dynamics of the setup. Not having an active preamp did not seem a problem. One thing I have noticed is that most of my line level sources have more than enough voltage to play quite loudly through my amps. Most of the time, my active preamps are just attenuating the signal. Very rarely do I ever play music so loudly that I feel the preamp is actually amplifying the signal. If I lived in an apartment or someplace close to neighbors, I would never play so loudly. |
Hello guys Hi Herb, look at this thread, it will explain most of all you need to know. And look at what Nelson Pass has to say about passive preamps in the 7th post. http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1400932591&&&/Passive-preamp-w-Rogue-Medusa-and-Rega-D And keep an eye on this thread for results for direct in observations on the sound when he does it. http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1401842543&&&/Mark-Levinson-no-20-monoblocks Cheers George |
- 67 posts total