The Truth About Preamps

>>I would echo the above and say that in your price range, you are probably better off spending money on the amp and cd
player and going direct.

I agree if you are not doing Lps. You have to give it a little thought so you don't have an impedance mismatch with the source or load.... but the results can be very good.

I don't agree w/ above that the pre is where you should necessarily spend all your money or build your system around the pre with the "budget that is left over". The small signal in a pre makes noise a big factor (then again it always is) and things have to be done right. If you look at tube stuff the amp has to deal with power and the output transformer of a tube amp is critical and expensive. That amps top out at retail of 6k (Dave's comment above)is not true in my experience. At least with tube amps. Again, start with the amps output tranny. If you carefully spend about 5-6k for parts and Diy you get a very nice one.

If your system is under 15k and cd only, this is the vast majority of systems (discount used price), I'd consider going without a pre.

I checked out the Placette site above and I'm not familiar with their stuff but I think it is why I moved to DIY. If their prices are in the ballpark of Dave's post... geeeze. I only read the "details" page at that site but all they talk about is Vishay resistors (a couple bucks a pop), quality volume attenuators (they ain't that expensive) and proper source loading.

Here is an article that talks about some of the basic issues.
http://www.harmonicdiscord.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6576

The above is limited to tubes. Just mho.

Sincerely
I remain,

The top of the line Adcom is a very nice preamp is rated Class A by Stereophile and can be found used for less than $1000 or by it new for about $1500 it sounds great.

If you want to run with out a preamp, you would need to by a fairly expensive CD Player.

I would recommend the Levinson #39 or #390s. These units sound great without the preamp and are built to be played that way. You should be able to find a #39 for about $3000-$4000 on Audiogon or audition and buy an new #390s at a dealer and you'll still be way ahead.

The cool thing about these units is that if you want to add a preamp like the #380s or other high quality preamp as funds appear you can still do so and still have one of the best CD players out there in the #39 and #390s.
Another upside would be that if your preamp ever needs updating/service you could still use the #39 for both in your system and not be out of tunes.

Good listening,

Steven

There are pros and cons to both sides of the equation. Personally, I think there's an added sonic benefit to running through a quality pre-amp ... One thing nobody has mentioned is the need for a pre-amp when using more than one source (tape deck, tuner, phono). In most of today's systems, a pre-amp will be necessary to use secondary sources.

I have a Spectron MII (digital) amp, a Supratek Syrah (tube) Pre and a Granite 657 (tube) CDP. The CDP has an analog volume control. I have run the system with and without the pre. My experience was that, though the sound was cleaner direct without the pre, overall I preferred the sound with the pre. The pre seemed to do a better job of driving the amp (more bloom, as I think someone put it above).

I have four sources. Doing without a preamp is senseless for me.

I still would not buy a high priced cdp so I can bypass a pre amp. My pre amp allows me to adjust gain for each channel, or just go passive. I like the versatility.

My $1600 (used) pre is single ended class A. The cdp will use an off the shelf op amp. That is a serious discrepancy for me.

There are wonderful pre amps both used and new, that can be bought for less than five grand. They all will have more sophisticated volume and gain circuitry than any cdp.