Matching preamp to amp

Kool39,
in cases with tube preamps you have enormous gain and output voltage to bring to the imput of amp. In this case you realy don't want the input impedance of the amplifier being too high since you will have much less volume controll capabilities from your preamp.
In case with passive preamp the philosophy stays near-same if you have high output voltage source. In my case I have passive/active pre with simple bipolar output stage that I switch sometimes when I play vinyl and turn off when I play CDs. I have approximately 0.5V out of my phono preamp with 0.5mV output cartridge and my VTL amplifiers have 0.55V input sencitivity(after recent mods). ON some records I feel lack of bass and have to switch the gain back-on and on some records it's plenty enough especially on 45rpms.

This is exactly what I have been trying to figure out, impedance matching. I am probably going to go with a pre and an amp from the same manufacturer, Blue Circle. The BC22 amp has an input sensitivity of 22kOhms, whereas the BC21.1 preamp is said to have an output impedance of 180 ohms, which translates into a 122:1 amp:preamp ratio.

Does this make sense to you? I'm not very technically knowledgeable, so please forgive my ignorance.

Thanks.

Max

While the guidelines above are generaly true, some manufacturers such as Rowland have different philosphies about impedance and "power matching".

Max,

I've owned the BC21 and BC22 for almost two years now and had no idea what the specs were!!! Obviously they match very well, and have a nice sound. If your specs are correct it creates an interesting conundrum for me because the preamp that didn't match with the Aleph 3 was in fact the BC21! Oh well.

If you get the BC21.1, it should have a sonic signature a bit closer to neutral [whatever that is] because they use 6922 tubes as opposed to the 6SN7s in the BC21. The BC21 has a very nice full bodied midrange and upper bass for those folks that like that. I do. ;-]

Unsound, what approach does Rowland take to power matching? Thanks.

Hi Gunbei,

Thanks for your response. I got the BC22 spec from Gilbert and the BC21.1 spec from the review on Soundstage. I had been thinking about a different pre that requires an amp with 50kOhms to operate ideally. I've decided to go with the BC21.1. :-) Can't wait to get it, but it won't arrive until later this year. :-( The midrange is where the magic resides.

Question: what should I do for a pre while waiting for the 21.1? I'm thinking maybe my old Denon receiver or the Channel Islands Audio passive VPC-1 (only US$250) to tide me over for now.

Max