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How much do I need to spend to get a preamp that sounds better than no preamp?

Hello all.
I'm using an Audible Illusions L1 preamp and I think my system sounds better when I remove it from the signal path. Oppo BD105 directly to SMC Audio DNA1 Gold power amp. I have read that there is level of quality you need to hit before there will be an improvement in sound. I can't seem to find what that level is. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance,
Ben
honashagen
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
4,966 posts
 
kosst_amojan
A quote from an article for an active pre-amp. You’re ridiculous.
You have totally lost it, or your on your second bottle, that quote is NOT from Nelsons active preamp, but from his stance on passive preamps.
Here ’s the whole thing, once again for the aggro one. 

A Quote from the master Nelson Pass on passive preamps.

Nelson Pass,

We’ve got lots of gain in our electronics. More gain than some of us need or want. At least 10 db more.

Think of it this way: If you are running your volume control down around 9 o’clock, you are actually throwing away signal level so that a subsequent gain stage can make it back up.

Routinely DIYers opt to make themselves a “passive preamp” - just an input selector and a volume control.

What could be better? Hardly any noise or distortion added by these simple passive parts. No feedback, no worrying about what type of capacitors – just musical perfection.

And yet there are guys out there who don’t care for the result. “It sucks the life out of the music”, is a commonly heard refrain (really - I’m being serious here!). Maybe they are reacting psychologically to the need to turn the volume control up compared to an active preamp.

lartecafe
6 posts
 
Less than 2k. Try “AM Audio”, state of art building, perfect matching and quality selected components, no capacitors into sound routing, dual mono, dual power supply, quality strong metal construction, gold-plated pcb... just volume and input

scope of preamplifier is not to sound but to adjust impedance and normalize gain, bringing the signal, as it is, from source to the amplifier.. for this reason couldn’t be passive and has not “to sound”but just to bring the sound as a diligent steward.. 

it should be enough expensive to ensure building at top quality rating but not so expensive more than a good source or amplifier, if not we are going to revert the sense of things... 
kosst_amojan
2,095 posts
 
@georgehifi 

The following is copied directly from passdiy.com, projects section, B1 buffer preamp. AN ACTIVE PRE-AMP! Care to actually cite his published "stance on passive pre-amps"? What you're calling "his stance" is word for word what he wrote in his article for the B1 buffer. No doubt you cherry pick the article and mischaracterize the man's opinion because further down he refutes the case you try to make. 
So I say again... It's ridiculous to quote an article for an active pre-amp to bolster the rational for a passive.

Project Categories ListAmplifiersPreamplifiersB1 Buffer Preamp
Nelson Pass
Introduction
Side A

So here we are in the New Millennium, and thanks to Tom Holman and THX we’ve got lots of gain in our electronics. More gain than some of us need or want. At least 10 db more.

Think of it this way: If you are running your volume control down around 9 o’clock, you are actually throwing away signal level so that a subsequent gain stage can make it back up.

Routinely DIYers opt to make themselves a “passive preamp” - just an input selector and a volume control.

What could be better? Hardly any noise or distortion added by these simple passive parts. No feedback, no worrying about what type of capacitors – just musical perfection.

And yet there are guys out there who don’t care for the result. “It sucks the life out of the music”, is a commonly heard refrain (really - I’m being serious here!). Maybe they are reacting psychologically to the need to turn the volume control up compared to an active preamp.

I suppose if I had to floor the accelerator to drive 55 mph, maybe I’d think the life was being sucked out of my driving. Then again, maybe I like 55. Nice and safe, good gas mileage…

Is impedance matching an issue? Passive volume controls do have to make a trade-off between input impedance and output impedance. If the input impedance is high, making the input to the volume control easy for the source to drive, then the output impedance is also high, possibly creating difficulty with the input impedance of the power amplifier. And vice versa: If your amplifier prefers low source impedance, then your signal source might have to look at low impedance in the volume control.

This suggests the possibility of using a high quality buffer in conjunction with a volume control. A buffer is still an active circuit using tubes or

transistors, but it has no voltage gain – it only interposes itself to make a low impedance into a high impedance, or vice versa.

If you put a buffer in front of a volume control, the control’s low impedance looks like high impedance. If you put a buffer after a volume control, it makes the output impedance much lower. You can put buffers before and after a volume control if you want.

The thing here is to try to make a buffer that is very neutral. Given the simple task, it’s pretty easy to construct simple buffers with very low distortion and noise and very wide bandwidth, all without negative feedback.

There are lots of different possibilities for buffers, but we are going to pick my favorite:


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