Bufus, I Mark Levinson/Quad experience took place in a store demo. I have a similar Mark Levinson (no.39)/Jadis (SE845) setup, and am considering a Jadis preamp (JPL2), so wanted to know if the Jadis preamp would make my system sound better. I won't have a chance to test it out, so wanted to know if adding a preamp in this kind of situation generally improves the sound. I certainly don't want to buy an expensive and unnecessary piece of equipment, and find out it degrades the quality of my system! Unfortunately, I won't have access to any manuals before my immediate purchasing decision, since I'm in a different city.
Thanks for the explanations about impedance matching and extra gain, it really begs the question about my understanding how a preamp works in the first place. Does anyone know any website was a 'primer' or 'basics' about hifi explaining this? I wish audiogon had a section explaining technical basics for beginners like me.
Does a preamp actually add any more gain than the volume control on my CD player does? Or is it 'better quality' gain? I heard somewhere that the volume control on my CD player can both attenuate and add gain to the signal. So for low volumes, why would having a preamp be better if the improvement were primarily due to gain? At low volumes, would the direct sound be better, if it weren't for impedance mismatching?