Ps Audio BHK preamp Vs ARC best preamps

I've owned the DSD, Bricasti M1, Jeff Rowland Aeris, and now the Chord Dave DAC. In my "opinion" none of them sound good direct...the soundstage collapses and dynamics are lost.

Mario, we are not too far away from Paul's shop here in Colorado and we plan to drop in sometime soon anyway. What's your time frame? We can try the actual test with an without the pre and report findings back... His listening room with the IRS Vs is quite good and revealing. Paul would probably dig the experiment.

I have (almost) all PS Audio gear, and when I got the Directstream Jr DAC I was planning on it replacing the integrated amp I was using at the time by running it directly to my amps.  While accurate in the mid & high end, I found the sound very thin and lacking in bass.  I added the BHK Pre and the sound improved all around.  I can't explain why another component in the chain added to the sound in such a profound way, but it did.  I can't comment on ARC, but I can speak to PS Audio, and in my experience the addition of the pre to their DAC was most certainly an improvement (and frankly necessary in my system, as the DAC alone would have been insufficient).

Seems like the older pre amplifier designs are really substrative to the sound. It is my experience also.

Newer design are better, still I think ARC, Ayre and some other brands are asking just too much money for their top gun pres nowadays... just insane amounts when we think of it.

shiner,  Paul McGowan said he had the same experience and that he couldn't explain it either.