"Your admonishment to be "really careful" was needlessly scary. Dick"
I think you were the only one that was scared. You do seem to be shaken up over all this. If you actually had one of these amps, you would know why I recommend caution. You can easily run out of gain and/or roll the highs off, and I've had that happen. Why would it not be something to consider?
"as opposed to a passive line stage which only cuts the gain available from the source"
A passive doesn't add or take away anything, that's why its called a passive. It can only work with what's given, and if you put an extra pairs of IC's in the path, you take away from what it has to work with.
"My point to the OP was that the line stage portion of the Creek (active or passive) still needs to be connected to the amplifier portion. That’s what the included jumpers do and they can be replaced with better connectors."
I don't remember you talking about better connectors until I brought them up in my last post. You were talking about IC's. There's a difference. Creek does not put the jumpers on the outside so they can be replaced with better ones. They do it so the amp or preamp section can be completely bypassed.
If you're looking to tweak for SQ, it would probably be a good idea to pull the jumpers out and clean them with a good contact cleaner. After about 10-15 years the silver jumpers will be tarnished. Doing that will make a difference in SQ.
I think you were the only one that was scared. You do seem to be shaken up over all this. If you actually had one of these amps, you would know why I recommend caution. You can easily run out of gain and/or roll the highs off, and I've had that happen. Why would it not be something to consider?
"as opposed to a passive line stage which only cuts the gain available from the source"
A passive doesn't add or take away anything, that's why its called a passive. It can only work with what's given, and if you put an extra pairs of IC's in the path, you take away from what it has to work with.
"My point to the OP was that the line stage portion of the Creek (active or passive) still needs to be connected to the amplifier portion. That’s what the included jumpers do and they can be replaced with better connectors."
I don't remember you talking about better connectors until I brought them up in my last post. You were talking about IC's. There's a difference. Creek does not put the jumpers on the outside so they can be replaced with better ones. They do it so the amp or preamp section can be completely bypassed.
If you're looking to tweak for SQ, it would probably be a good idea to pull the jumpers out and clean them with a good contact cleaner. After about 10-15 years the silver jumpers will be tarnished. Doing that will make a difference in SQ.