Modern Linestages

Grannyring,
Regarding the direction of some "modern" components your comments are astute. When I attend live performances(unamplified jazz groups) they consistently sound rather,full,rich,round toned and yes warm. Even when they play very fast tempo music it`s still very full bodied and preserves a sense of ease and density(same is true of classical music programs). What ever turn high end audio made toward the lean,clinical and thin tonality destination in the name of accuracy(their version of it, I guess). Well I`ll travel a different highway.Thanks, but no thanks.

My preference is for an active preamp but done as simple as possible. I chose CJ's ART and ACT 2.2 for my pres "first" because I like the way they sounded and "second" because of their design: Class A, only one gain stage, no negative feedback, and no cathode follower. For an active tube pre, that's pretty simple.

So here's a case where a pre is simple and expensive. I wondered if it was because they were the companies statement product and, in the ART's case, because only a limited production was made. I'm sure that's part of it but finding that, in the ART 3's case, it uses 32 Teflon caps at a cost of about 300 each. That alone works out to 9000 in just those parts. Does it need all those to work? No. But that was CJ's decision. Do I need to pay that much for a pre? No. But that's my decision.

Hypothetically: If someone was to invent a raw driver that outperforms every other driver in the world and cost 100 in parts....If he puts that into the perfect box that cost him 100 in materials....and if it takes him an hour to assemble it (we'll give him a 100 per hour rate)....Can he charge 300 for it? Can he charge 30,000? Yes and yes. First yes: If he's a Saint. Second yes: If there are people that will buy it at that price. In the latter case, I'm sure some people will wonder why he charges so much. The short answer is, "because he can". A better answer is: "It took years and a lot of money to develop this and I have a family and a business with overhead I have to take care of".

While I understand that passive pres are more system dependent than active pres, I find it interesting that some would suggest that simpler is better and yet choose a system that doesn't maximize the potential for a passive pre.

"08-22-11: "Unsound
While I understand that passive pres are more system dependent than active pres, I find it interesting that some would suggest that simpler is better and yet choose a system that doesn't maximize the potential for a passive pre.Unsound"

You can try this experiment yourself, put your cd straight into your poweramp and play a known quiet starting disc, so you can stop it before it gets too loud.
This is the purest way you will hear that disc, any active pre in the system will sound different to this as no active pre is a straight wire with gain, they all have a signature to their sound, call it coloured, or distortion they all sound different, none sound like the direct conection between the source and poweramp. The passive pre will if implemented right sound the closest and the truest to the source. You may not like that purity of sound, you may wish to introduce an active preamp that gives you the colouration your seeking to counteract a problem elsewhere in the system, but this is an expensive band-aid fix

Cheers George

George you are correct that each active pre brings it's own sound to the stage but let's take it to the next step! Every amp, speaker, cable, line conditioner, room treatment and so on moves one system differently so by going with an active pre vs. a passive is just a different flavor of ice cream. You might like chocolate while I like coffee. As I stated personally I have found passive pre's to sound wonderful but they do have their faults and now use an active pre and have never looked back. Maybe some day I'll have the good fortune to try yours, would love to hear it.
Steve
SOS