How much do I need to spend to get a preamp that sounds better than no preamp?

Well I just bought a used Ayre K-5x pre. Any opinions?

Well I just bought a used Ayre K-5x pre. Any opinions?

Only a question: if you were happy with no preamp, why?

Only a question: if you were happy with no preamp, why?

+1

Cheers George

kosst_amojan
A quote from an article for an active pre-amp. You’re ridiculous.

You have totally lost it, or your on your second bottle, that quote is NOT from Nelsons active preamp, but from his stance on passive preamps.
Here ’s the whole thing, once again for the aggro one. 

A Quote from the master Nelson Pass on passive preamps.

Nelson Pass,

We’ve got lots of gain in our electronics. More gain than some of us need or want. At least 10 db more.

Think of it this way: If you are running your volume control down around 9 o’clock, you are actually throwing away signal level so that a subsequent gain stage can make it back up.

Routinely DIYers opt to make themselves a “passive preamp” - just an input selector and a volume control.

What could be better? Hardly any noise or distortion added by these simple passive parts. No feedback, no worrying about what type of capacitors – just musical perfection.

And yet there are guys out there who don’t care for the result. “It sucks the life out of the music”, is a commonly heard refrain (really - I’m being serious here!). Maybe they are reacting psychologically to the need to turn the volume control up compared to an active preamp.

Less than 2k. Try “AM Audio”, state of art building, perfect matching and quality selected components, no capacitors into sound routing, dual mono, dual power supply, quality strong metal construction, gold-plated pcb... just volume and input

scope of preamplifier is not to sound but to adjust impedance and normalize gain, bringing the signal, as it is, from source to the amplifier.. for this reason couldn’t be passive and has not “to sound”but just to bring the sound as a diligent steward.. 

it should be enough expensive to ensure building at top quality rating but not so expensive more than a good source or amplifier, if not we are going to revert the sense of things...