cdp to amp

A lot depends upon how effeciant your speakers are and the size of your room. If your speakers are very effecient and linear, then using a cdp with a volume control may have enough drive with your Bel Canto amp in a small to mid size room. You may get more detail without a pre amp, and you will definately save money.

On the other hand, some people prefer to use a good pre amp that offers more drive and/or color. Many audiophiles prefer to use a tube pre amp with a solid state amp, although you may get the benefit of a tube output with the Cary 306/200.

I am presently very happy with my set-up. I'm going direct from my Metronome T-1i (solid state) cdp to the David Berning ZH-270 tube amp. The ZH-270 tube amp has a volume control and two inputs, which provides more drive than a cdp with a built-in volume control. I am getting great detail without using a pre amp, and I have enough drive to fill my large room with a cathedral ceiling.

I tried using my Phillips CDP Direct and found there was lack of Vol. Gain.I did not eleviste the problem tll I bought a used FT Audio LW-1.Even with that on some CD's there was not enough Vol..

There are a few different specs that must be taken into consideration.Spkr.efficiency,Impedence matching,Input\Output Sensitivity,Cable Capacitance to name a few.

The CARY is suppose to have a better Digital Vol. Control than other players.The experience I had was further improved when I added a modified ART DAC leaving the output resistors with a 7v value in place.Because of my amp I should have lowerd it to between 4v-6v because I do not even get to 10 o'clock before the db's are to much for normal listening.

Lucily my speaker driver's can handle up to 300w and my amp only puts out 125w.If a child were to walk over and play with the vol. setting I might very well blow my driver's and my mind!

Just a thought

The plus is a simpler signal path and perhaps(?) less expense. The minus is less choices, flexibilty and perhaps greater expense and human effort to make it work well.

i thought i'd love running direct from my wadia 860x to my vac 70/70. but after listening, i preferred using the pre-outs on my VTL integrated (basically the equivalent of a vtl 2.5 pre). the wadia direct seemed way too lean in my system. the vtl (maybe because of the NOS tubes i was using?) added body, dynamics, palpability. not what i expected at all.

it must be system dependent. maybe because my system is on the verge of lean anyway (martin logans, silver interconnects), i dunno. just what i heard.

I disagree with the above poster about the negatives of passive preamps. He has not tried the Placette with its Vishay resistors. In my system: Accuphase CDP into a Sonic Frontier Power 2, the Placette did enhance the transparency and had no effect on the dynamics. In fact, the upper frequency clarity seemed to enhance the dynamics. Good luck with you choice.