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Expensive Preamplifiers = Big Scam?

tubino said:
I listened to a number of preamps. I still have some. In my experience the well-designed tube ones trounce the solid state ones. Could there be a solid state one I like more, if I just gave it a chance? Sure, why not.

Somewhere I have an HK Cit I that surprised me first by the size of the power transformer, and second by the sound, which was pretty darned good for something that looked awfully complicated. Somewhere I have a pair of Lafayette KT-300s, mono versions of the famous KT-600. I can't figure out why they sound so good, in an old tube way... but modern ones with octals are really much better.
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My experience differs. I've heard both top quality tube preamps and solid state preamps. Neither "trounced" the other.
 
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Mark B said:
My experience differs. I've heard both top quality tube preamps and solid state preamps. Neither "trounced" the other.
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I've heard a very good quality solid state preamp in a fine system, and it was ... very good. But when a very good tube preamp was put in, the magical holographic qualities that the directly-heated triode amp was so good at maintaining were still there/restored. In a system without those qualities being maintained by the amp, the SS preamp would not be trounced. It might sound better.

The only time I heard the "trouncing" was with an excellent DHT amp in the chain, in which case the SS pre killed some magic. But since I am using an excellent DHT amp almost all the time, that's the general case for me.

Right now though, in my workshop setup I have a Marantz SS preamp. The amp is just a rebuilt Dyna SCA-35. It's okay, but I doubt any tube preamp would change the situation much for the better there. If/when I put a better amp in there (and the speakers warrant it), I'll probably hear differences in preamps. So sure, no one notices when a preamp kills something that the amp is going to kill anyway.

That's why for me opinions on audio components are only useful when people describe the system a bit. It's also why I found the ABX guys to be such a bore with their test setups. What's so interesting about proving that a mid-fi component can't be distinguished from another mid-fi component in a mid-fi system? No surprise there. A top tube pre vs a top SS pre in a really GREAT system? That's interesting. Maybe that's Mark B is talking about. If so, let's hear more.
 
I agree with tubino and Mark B. Really good preamps SS or tube don't trounce each other although they do sound different. They do trounce mid-fi preamps (glass or sand) and also the preamp section of every receiver I've ever heard.
 
Today I played my CDP directly through my amplifier, which has gain controls, and was suprised at the amount of volume produced. I did not feel the need to adjust the amplifier to full gain. Sound quality was very good but any improvement might be considered psychoacoustic as I was impressied that a system can work without a preamplifier and I don't have measuring equipment for analyzing......theoretically would having three amplifiers, each one dedicated to FM tuner, CD, or turntable(with setup preamp) be ideal????...especially if one is predisposed to leaving tone controls flat.
 
My 2 cents:

I am an old-time dyed in the wool two channel guy. Back in the day when Dolby Digital 5.1 hit the market (it was Called AC-3 in the very beginning)...I thought I might like the idea of "Home Theater". :nono:

Off I went, my trusty old Levinson ML26S 2 channel preamp was traded for one of these flashy new Lexicon DC-1 HT preamps. And yes.....I got all the whistles and bells......DTS option, fan option, the fully loaded piece that had a retail of damn near $5000 at the time.

Now armed with the DC-1, a pair of Martin Logan Request mains, SL-3 rears, Logos center and a pair of Velodyne FSR15 subwoofers I went home to enjoy my new "home theater experience"...... WOW! helicopters flew behind my head! BOOM! went the bass~! Oh boy!

Then, after I tired of watching movies, I loaded up one of my favorite classical CD's and dropped into my recliner to see how my new super-duper DC-1 would do with 2 channel..........:scratch2:


:no: :no: :no: :no: :no: :no: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh:

Ever pop a balloon with a pin? That's how fast the magic went away in two-channel mode. To say it sucked would have been a vast understatement. You mean I just dropped damn near $5K in 1999 dollars for this~! The soundstage had totally collapsed, the sound was grainy, hard and completely 2 dimensional. What happened to the air, ambience and 3D soundstage my previous preamp provided? Anyway, I lived with my mistake for about a year before I sold it off. One can find fun in the effects modes the DC-1 offered which I felt were quite good, however these got old quickly as well. I was missing an honest 2 channel 3D airy soundstage that comes with a quality preamp and other associated components.

Today, a loaded DC-1 will fetch about $200-300. A well kept ML26S $3000+. There is a reason for that. The preamp does matter, however if the rest of the system will not resolve a high quality preamp, it would lead a person to believe that the preamp was not worthwhile.....however this is just not so. Just as a CD only has binary bits to read, yet CD players can sound oh so different.

I went back to straight 2 channel about 8 years ago, and I try hard not to think of the beating I took getting out from under the "state-of-the-art" HT system pieces I bought. Never again.

Paul
 
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tubino said:
I'll be out in Seattle for a conference... not too far away... but you skipped over the system description part! Whatcha got?
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When is your conference?

If you're serious about doing this, I'll talk to the owner of a used audio store in Portland to see if we can do a demo in the store using a tube preamp and tube amp from the stores inventory. I'll bring my Yamaha CX-10000 preamp to compare to the tube preamp. Perhaps some local AKers would be interested in attending?

For a prior demo, the store owner was gracious enough to arrange a private listening session prior to the store opening on Saturday morning.
 
beemer said:
My 2 cents:

I am an old-time dyed in the wool two channel guy. Back in the day when Dolby Digital 5.1 hit the market (it was Called AC-3 in the very beginning)...I thought I might like the idea of "Home Theater". :nono:

Off I went, my trusty old Levinson ML26S 2 channel preamp was traded for one of these flashy new Lexicon DC-1 HT preamps. And yes.....I got all the whistles and bells......DTS option, fan option, the fully loaded piece that had a retail of damn near $5000 at the time.

Now armed with the DC-1, a pair of Martin Logan Request mains, SL-3 rears, Logos center and a pair of Velodyne FSR15 subwoofers I went home to enjoy my new "home theater experience"...... WOW! helicopters flew behind my head! BOOM! went the bass~! Oh boy!

Then, after I tired of watching movies, I loaded up one of my favorite classical CD's and dropped into my recliner to see how my new super-duper DC-1 would do with 2 channel..........:scratch2:


:no: :no: :no: :no: :no: :no: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh:

Ever pop a balloon with a pin? That's how fast the magic went away in two-channel mode. To say it sucked would have been a vast understatement. You mean I just dropped damn near $5K in 1999 dollars for this~! The soundstage had totally collapsed, the sound was grainy, hard and completely 2 dimensional. What happened to the air, ambience and 3D soundstage my previous preamp provided? Anyway, I lived with my mistake for about a year before I sold it off. One can find fun in the effects modes the DC-1 offered which I felt were quite good, however these got old quickly as well. I was missing an honest 2 channel 3D airy soundstage that comes with a quality preamp and other associated components.

Today, a loaded DC-1 will fetch about $200-300. A well kept ML26S $3000+. There is a reason for that. The preamp does matter, however if the rest of the system will not resolve a high quality preamp, it would lead a person to believe that the preamp was not worthwhile.....however this is just not so. Just as a CD only has binary bits to read, yet CD players can sound oh so different.

I went back to straight 2 channel about 8 years ago, and I try hard not to think of the beating I took getting out from under the "state-of-the-art" HT system pieces I bought. Never again.

Paul
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This is one of the best posts I've seen on AK, and mirrors my experience with HT preamps. Garbage for real 2-channel stereo sound.

I went down the same path: B&K super HT preamp, related amps, speakers... garbage.

Recently, I rebuilt my system based on a GAS Thaedra, Emotiva power amp, and a high-end turntable and cart. Wow. Hi-Fi returns. I was stunned by the difference.
 
BadjerJim said:
This is one of the best posts I've seen on AK, and mirrors my experience with HT preamps. Garbage for real 2-channel stereo sound.

I went down the same path: B&K super HT preamp, related amps, speakers... garbage.

Recently, I rebuilt my system based on a GAS Thaedra, Emotiva power amp, and a high-end turntable and cart. Wow. Hi-Fi returns. I was stunned by the difference.
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I was reading the last page of this thread thinking the same thing. Great post. I'd add, though, that I'm using an HT receiver as a 2-channel preamp in one of my systems, with some very high quality gear in the path, and it does a very nice job. They're not all totally bad. I've not had luck with other ones, just this one. A 'real' 2-channel pre is on its way tomorrow to fill in for it, just to get back to something else for awhile- but not because I don't like how this receiver sounds in 2-channel mode. I'm quite astonished actually.
 
You are cheating yourself without a good pre-amp. There are plenty of people here who have far more technical knowledge than I do, but for me the MOST important sound of a system comes from the pre-amp. I'm not a fan of tone controls (that's another can of worms around here) so I choose my gear based on it's own sound and how it affects the overall sound when it's in the system. That goes for source components, pre-amp, amp...everything. Yes it takes time and access to a wide variety of equipment....but the goal is to build something that I don't have to keep adjusting.
Buy a used tube pre, many can be found for a couple hundred bucks, and flip it if it doesn't meet your approval. You'll find one soon enough, then you'll hear what you've been missing.
 
IMO most power amps are designed to operate with the electrical characteristics of a preamp. The Impeadance, capacitance, resistance, ect must be correct to attain the right sound. Things like Freq responce, Dynamic's, detail will all be effected. That said, I've run my Audio Design PA100 Power amp directly from my CDP's variable outputs. soundstage, imaging and transparency all improved markedly over using my NAD peamp/tuner (which is of lesser quality than my power amp). I didn't notice any loss in dynamic's. But that's just one case, I woulden't expect the same results from everybody. Sometimes it just works out, sometimes it doesn't.

Please note that we are still running the audio section of our source...AKA a preamp, even when we bypass a regular preamp, were just runing it through less stages. If that source were matched up electrically to the power amps input including enough gain to reach full power from the amp, than all a preamp could do is change the sound. If your goal is getting the output as close to the signal as possible, than a passive preamp would be best.

However, as I stated most power amps are meant to be powered by a preamp with the right characterisics. If It works without a preamp it's more by accident than design. I suspect, most sources including my CDP don't have enough gain to get full power out of a power amp anyway.

Hopefully a more expensive preamp just gets out of the way, or if it colors the sound, it's intentional, like adding Even order harmonic distortion (Tube Sound) or changing the freq. responce (for a warm sound or to equelize speakers). Please note not all tube amps add enough distortion to produce "Tube Sound" in which case it can sound like SS, their are other reasons for using tubes over SS that you would have to ask someone more knowledgable than I about.
 
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pre amp

OK, so lets say we forget about the preamp, and just hook up an eq. Probelly be in the same boat as using the preamp? What ya think ? In other words wich would be the better of the two ?????????????:music::music:
 
My Sansui integrated has tone defeat and source direct and I use both. In this configuration would it be acting more as a passive pre since it is bypassing all tone and balance controls?

Also there was talk early on in this thread about different sources having different signal strengths and the pre-amp adjusts those signal levels so the amp gets the same signal from all sources. My question is when I have my iphone hooked up the signal level is much lower than all other sources. I'm pulling signal out the bottom of the phone so I'm not using the iphones internal amp afaik. For example 12 o'clock from the phono, tuner or cd is xx loud, to get that same level from the ipod I have to go to 2 o'clock.
 
Committed said:
My Sansui integrated has tone defeat and source direct and I use both. In this configuration would it be acting more as a passive pre since it is bypassing all tone and balance controls?
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Nice in theory, but not quite, there are several gain stages involving transistors....
If you have a Sansui direct coupled amplifier, without the tone you might be able to avoid capacitors in the signal path.......but its always going to be an active pre-amp when there are FETS and transistors involved......
 
Did anybody mentioned here the issue of impedance matching in which the preamp usually plays a positive role? Besides this comment, once I brought a Audio Research Company LS-3 line stage preamp to my system, I never thought about preamps again. It´s the most transparent component I´ve ever had. I am definitely favorable to preamps in the chain, but they have to be of high quality. The Yamaha mentioned by the OP probably is not up to the job (needinbg recapping?), at least this is my guess.
 
guiller said:
Once I brought a Audio Research Company LS-3 line stage preamp to my system, I never thought about preamps again. It´s the most transparent component I´ve ever had. I am definitely favorable to preamps in the chain, but they have to be of high quality. The Yamaha mentioned by the OP probably is not up to the job (needinbg recapping?), at least this is my guess.
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Nedgar is using the preamp outputs of an AVR, it is likely working as it should. For video it will perform very well. The Audio Research LS-2 you have is in a whole different league. My NAD preamp/tuner was easily eclispsed when I went directly to my power amp too. It's still a good preamp for the money, as I think most NAD products are, just not perfect.

IMO if your buy from a reputable company and do a little research on the specific product you want, you'll get what you pay for.

To get that transparent sound your talking about everything in the chain must be up to par. If I substite my stock CD players DAC for my Bryston DAC Module, my Audio Design amp for my Bryston, or my Energy RC-30 tower's with my Pro-22 Monitors the result is the same. A signigant loss in SQ. Each part must be equal in quality to get a good ballance for the money. Wheather its high end or entry level.

That said, if you plan to upgrade in the near future, then you can go with a much better component, you won't hear what's it's capable of though. I had my Pro-22 Monitor's for 25 years before I learned what they can do when I connected them to my Bryson Amp and better sources
 
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Mark B said:
When is your conference?

If you're serious about doing this, I'll talk to the owner of a used audio store in Portland to see if we can do a demo in the store using a tube preamp and tube amp from the stores inventory. I'll bring my Yamaha CX-10000 preamp to compare to the tube preamp. Perhaps some local AKers would be interested in attending?

For a prior demo, the store owner was gracious enough to arrange a private listening session prior to the store opening on Saturday morning.
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I'd attend that session, Echo Audio I'm guessing?
 
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