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I'm considering replacing my passive preamp with a tubes. Is it worth it?

I would like to know if it would be worth it to trade my passive preamp for tube.  Would the change make a significant improvement?  

My setup:

Magnepan MG .7
Mod Squad Line Drive passive preamp
Bryston 4b-st amp
Rythmik f12 sub
Bluesound Node
Tidal streaming

My budget on a preamp would be $1k.  If the answer is "yes" then opinions would be welcomed.

thanks



amritash
maplegrovemusic's avatar
maplegrovemusic
981 posts
 
Try a Bryston bp 20 , 25 or sp2 . One of the sweetest volume controls around . Oughta work well with your amp .
david12
1,398 posts
 

I did just that, switch from a passive to a tube pre. I was using a DIY built copy of one of the best current Passives, the Music First Audio Baby Reference. It was truly excellent, neutral, transparent, detailed, but. I felt I was missing some dynamics and changed to a Modwright 36.5 and yes, dynamics were clearly better and the sound was richer. The textures and notes seemed fuller, less dry.

 So in my case, I definitely preferred the tubed Pre. The Modwright would be above your price range, maybe not the L100. I agree with EBM, if I was looking for a $1000 tubed pre, you couldn't  go wrong with CJ. I used the LS17, I think it was, for a few years, a wonderful unit.

georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
4,966 posts
 
Music First Audio Baby Reference. It was truly excellent, neutral, transparent, detailed, but. I felt I was missing some dynamics 

Being a passive and seeing what that source signal had to go through, I can understand why it was missing dynamics. That amount of wire and even more in the more in the transformers, would be like putting the dynamics through a funnel.

http://upload.review33.com/images/201109/201109171318487268.jpg

Cheers George
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
5,112 posts
 
Personally, I've never had any luck with passives....they work in my system but not well.
auxinput
1,538 posts
 

Some thoughts....

There is a big controversy between passive vs active preamp. My thoughts are based on what kind of source you have. If you have a DAC with a nice tube or Class-A output stage, it could be that a passive preamp may be your best choice. It really depends on how the DAC I/V and audio stage translates those DAC pulses into waveforms.

Since you have a Bluesound as your DAC (or iPhone), putting in an active preamp can really help translate more body and mid-bass/bass frequencies. In a sense, it can give the waveforms a lot more muscle.

Unless you’re actually looking for more of the colored tubey/bloomey sound, I would look more towards the stronger/clearer sounding tube preamps. Or look at a nice solid-state Class A preamp. I cannot advise on tube preamps (not my area of expertise), but some solid state amps include the Krell KAV-280p (can be found close to $1k sometimes). The Krell KAV-280p is the oldest Krell I would recommend, but it’s excellent.

There’s a PS Audio PCA-2 up for sale on audiogon. It looks nice with a hefty power supply.

My experience with Bryston preamps (BP-20, SP2) is that they are very clean/clear with lots of attack, but no decay. If you’re looking to get a lot of midrange or mid-bass body, Bryston is somewhat weak in this area (in my opinion).  It’s just not as strong as the Krell is.

It could be challenging to find a good Class A preamp around $1k, but you can do it if you look.

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