Thiel Owners

Robert - a primary consideration is the length of your interconnects. Long interconnects place the burden of driving them onto your source components.

tomthiel

Good to see you here this New Year.  This will be your year to launch Thiel 

Renaissance. Another year for excellent service via Rob at CSS.

Happy Listening!

ydjames

Thank You for supporting Mr. Rob Gillum at CSS. Keep me posted as you massage the new 2.7 coaxial drivers into your existing loudspeakers.

Happy Listening!

vair68robert , 

Thanks for the info, I never even knew about a passive pre amp until yesterday, I'm curious about it and given your experience will look more into it.  Honestly I have no issue with using a DAC as the pre amp, just that you read reviews that gush over pre amps, and it makes you feel like "whelp, I guess without one I'll never achieve true audio nirvana".  I guess part of the pre amp appeal to me is based around my fear of anything with a digital display as I could have an all-analog pre amp, and a simpler DAC, no touch screens or LCDs needed.

I'll look through this thread more in depth over the weekend to read more about the topic at hand, appreciate the heads up!

coop_301

The preamp or no preamp , powered preamp or passive preamp conversation has been discused more than once on Audiogons forums .

There is no right or wrong answer , unless as Tom pointed out if you have long interconnects then you need a powered preamp .

Think of it this way , if you are only using a DAC that has a volume control then go directly to the amp , why spend money on a preamp and another set of interconnects ?  Spend your money on Upgrading the interconnects from your DAC to the amp ,  just my opinion .

Have fun reading 219 pages , lots of good info .