Preamp buffer?
- Thread starter drgroove
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jaymanaa
RIP 1961-2018
It's basically just a tube stage to put between your pre and amp in order to add "tube sound" whatever that is. They don't typically have much gain, and a lot of people look at them as one more thing in the signal path, meaning they can only harm the signal, not help it to remain faithful to the source. The transformer would be for the tube's power supply, and is sometimes mounted on a separate chassis.
It's an audio "accessory" certainly not a NEED but serves a purpose to change the sound, tube rollers are very familiar with that concept, chasing down every nuance of this tube or that tube etc. - some people "accessorize" with eq's, some swear by "Audiophile" power cables. DACs, Exotic speaker wires, or magic windows that you put near your gear to soak up god knows what of "ambient field" stuff. MIT adds a sound with that block of components in the signal path of their speaker wires and RCA cables.
A "buffer", filter, or whatever it's being marketed as , is Audio Salt and Pepper. Just like the other accessories (true, there are some bogus ones out there and some purely designed to "Bernie Madoff" the consumer) they're Optional and "season to taste".
Some of these thing "seaoning" solutions may have merit, others may be placebo , who knows. I acquired a Musical Fidelity X-10D " tube buffer" and use it with My airport express . works fine for how I'm using it and hasn't hindered the sound. I'm not going to claim to have experienced an eargasm using it, but it's a subtle enhancement in the application that I'm using in and since I have it.. I use it. Some dude might buy into the high end AC outlet, or ripping their Denon Cartridge apart to put it into a wood body, someone else it testing tubes to find the "perfect match". and some person might be hanging some rocks off the back of their rca connections sold to them by a company that looks to be like the church of Scientology for the Consumer Audio industry.
Audio is like religion, everyone claims theirs is the best. If the opportunity presents itself, Try one, if you don't notice anything different in a positive way. dump it.
A "buffer", filter, or whatever it's being marketed as , is Audio Salt and Pepper. Just like the other accessories (true, there are some bogus ones out there and some purely designed to "Bernie Madoff" the consumer) they're Optional and "season to taste".
Some of these thing "seaoning" solutions may have merit, others may be placebo , who knows. I acquired a Musical Fidelity X-10D " tube buffer" and use it with My airport express . works fine for how I'm using it and hasn't hindered the sound. I'm not going to claim to have experienced an eargasm using it, but it's a subtle enhancement in the application that I'm using in and since I have it.. I use it. Some dude might buy into the high end AC outlet, or ripping their Denon Cartridge apart to put it into a wood body, someone else it testing tubes to find the "perfect match". and some person might be hanging some rocks off the back of their rca connections sold to them by a company that looks to be like the church of Scientology for the Consumer Audio industry.
Audio is like religion, everyone claims theirs is the best. If the opportunity presents itself, Try one, if you don't notice anything different in a positive way. dump it.
I have a couple of those tube buffers, a Yaqin and a Grant Fidelity... both modded out with WIMA caps and vintage tubes. I use them between my DACs and preamps and IMHO they tend to "warm up" the digital feed. Preamp buffer is sort of a misnomer, since by design they have zero gain... in fact the gain is actually slightly less than 1, so there is a very minimal loss of signal gain with them in the loop. As with any audio accessory, the benefit (if any) lies with the listener.