Modern Linestages

And now what started as a debate with sensible questions and responses turns to posters taking pot shots.
Do you think this happens with forums for other hobbyists ??
Here, it seems if you have a different opinion even on something subjective you are branded an idiot.
At the risk of being one ,I firmly am in the camp with Knghifi,Charles1dad,Onemug and a few others.
Naturally I haven't heard every preamp,no one has.in my 40 years of high end listening I have never heard a passive that I liked better then the preamp I owned at that time.
Today my preamp retails in excess of 20K.
It really is something I cant afford but it also gives my more enjoyment when listening to music then I have ever experienced so how does one equate $$$ to enjoyment??
In the end it doesn't matter which component is better or why.
What matters is what it sounds like to you.

Onhwy61,
Hi, I must say I`m a bit surprised you did`nt get the obvious point Knghifi was making.

Goldeneraguy,
The strange thing is the pro active lightstage posters don`t belittle the those who prefer the passive or direct route at all. I`ts just a choice based on what sounds better to you. The passive advocates insist theirs is the purer,more accurate, thus the right way. Many who have tried both approaches have simply found that is`nt the case often.

Grannyring, years ago we had to face the issue of 'what is reference?' To that end we came to the conclusion that no media could be trusted as it all has flaws as you mention.

So we used direct microphone feeds. What we found with microphones running direct is that they can be so real that you can be easily fooled by the result of playing them, as long as the speakers are not in the same room as the mic!

We found that the media (tape, LP, CD and other digital formats) is source of the greatest degradation. Nevertheless I have found that it is very useful to have an LP of a recording that I have made and that I was there for, so when I hear the playback I have some idea of how it was really supposed to sound. At any rate its been my experience over the years to keep the processing of the playback as minimalist as possible, so long as that minimalism does not compromise the playback.

Its a tricky path to follow. But I have found that by doing that and also avoiding synergistic effects that I have the most success approaching the original- and mind you, it is not possible to get to the original music no matter how hard we can try, but OTOH getting to the original **recording** of that event is much more within our collective grasp.

To that end I have found a good line stage to be indispensable if you want to capture all the nuance in the recording. This allows the signal to arrive at the amplifiers without any contribution or editorial from the interconnect cables.

Atma,

Yes, I so understand your post. Yes, it seems the digital medium may in fact be a great source of lost fidelity. There are different roads to the same end and perhaps different experiences based on each of our own perceptions of what fidelity really sounds like.