Marantz SA8260 Direct to Amp

What I meant is that if he hooks up the Marantz directly to the amp without a passive at minimum it's likely he'll blow his speakers. The Marantz has no volume control I'm aware of and I have one. Standard output of cd players is about 2 volts or more than the maximum required by many amps to put out full power. He should at least get a passive as that's the closest thing to no preamp but personally I'd just get a real preamp. I've not tried any passives but would not want to lose any dynamics that I've read people talk about using passives.

Mikesinger, thank you for your recommendations, I'm looking into their availability.

To those of you whose experience was poor, running source direct: As rule of thumb, I understand, output impedance from the source should be below 300 Ohms, input impedance on the amp should be >50k Ohms and capacitance of the interconnects should be below 100pF/ft. Violating any of these measurements would cause high frequency roll off and mush bass. By any chance can anyone validate this by confirming that their components did NOT adhere to this rule of thumb???

Mikesinger,

You mentioned a 'midbass/bass suckout' when running a CDP directly to an amp. I assume this phenomena occurs even with players that have a variable output. You've obviously experienced this first hand. I wouldn't make sense to me that such a problem could be written off to a system mismatch.
So what causes this to happen. Naturally, if this occurs as a rule, people would avoid this arrangment. Could you offer any insight into why this happens?

Thanks,
S.Hebert

I would strongly recommend buying a good used Integrated Amplifier. You could easily buy a high-powered Integrated right here on Audiogon (or ebay) for around $1,500-, including models from Krell, Musical Fidelity, Classe, Plinius and others. Some of these models put out such excellent sound that it would take big, big money to better them with seperates. This is where you need to be with your budget and even quite a bit beyond in my opinion.

I agree with lars22. Your situation is begging for an integrated amp and there
are plenty of good ones to be had for under $1500 used. I don't think you
can do better in seperates (remember, with seperates you will need another
set of interconnects as well) at this price point. Go integrated.

Sorry, I just noticed that this thread was over one year old. Decision is
probably made huh?