The future of preamps

An additional point: The 700cx is spec'd as being capable of putting out a maximum output voltage of 84 volts RMS.

Based on the amp's voltage gain of 20.89x (see my previous post), that output voltage would be produced by an input voltage of:

84/20.89 = 4.02 volts.

Therefore if someone indicated to Keith that the amp can handle an input of 18 volts without clipping either what that person said was misunderstood, or that person misunderstood the question, or that person didn't know what he was talking about.

Regards,
-- Al

Keith- Meet Al, our resident technical analyst and voice of reason on all things electrical/quantitative. He's not a manufacturer or designer. He's kind of like our Spock but with a love of music ,a keen dispassionate "eye" for techno-babble, and a willingness to help all of use non-EE types understand some of the basic science, math, and engineering behind things audio.

Swamp, you speak for many of us on this site in regards to Al.
Charles,

Keith- I hope you were not offended. I know how foolish I once felt when I tried to explain to a client how difficult and expensive it would be to build a certain type solution to a coastal erosion problem he was facing, only to find out later that:
1. the guy was one of the most experienced and competent architect/builders on the northeast and
2. he had more $ than god!
3. he was too much a gentleman to tell me either.

@ Atmasphere, Hi good to meet you, I took a peek at your products, impressive to say the least!, for some crazy reason my friend here, jmcgrogan2 believes I am in over my head, I suppose he does not know me enough to make that call, as far as the 3.58 volts min to input of my krell 700cx, I will again call krell and talk to Ray Munchler, the service manager to confirm if that spec is min or max input spec, I have had this conversation with him more than once, so I hope he does not think I have a bad memory! anybody can make a mistake, this is why I will ask for the third or fourth time, as I said, Ray said, the spec of 3.58 is what it takes to drive the amp, and it can take max of 18 volts to over load the input, I assumed the 3.58 was max spec too!, Thats when Ray munchler corrected me! another situation is that I cannot use typical tube pre-amps or sources direct to amp, or I would have to activate the coupling capacitors that are not active inside the amp to protect is from tube unstableness!, Its a direct coupled amp, a real one!, this is in my owners manual that I have, and Ray confirmed that as well, He also stated not to activate the coupling caps, they will degrade the performance of my amp, so he said make damn certain if you use a tube product, make sure it is designed to be able to work with the amp, he said they are out their, an example of what he says is this, a tube source with the tube buffers before transformer or transformers, in other words, the signal comes thru the transformers before out-put, now thats if I am useing a tube source with volume control direct to amp, not useing a pre-amp, I will post my findings from Ray here by tuesday, I do enjoy tube sound, so my question to you was, will any of your tube pre-amps work with this extrodinary amp?, Thankyou so much, Its a privelege to talk with you and an honor!