2. amps-preamps
  3. 150422-19072

Did I buy a broken amp?

I purchased a used amp to mate with a dac / preamp in the same line which I own. The new amp is suppose to be 150 watts into 8ohm.  When I play the amp at 35/100 volume, I barely hear any sound.  I need to get volume  to at least 75/100 or 80/100 to provide adequate listening sound. 75/100 sounds how 50/100 should sound. (And so on)   It does not seem to clip or distort.   Could the amp be broken or does it just not provide enough juice for my speakers? 
Equipment:
Preamplifier / Dac Wadia 321
amplifier:wadia 315 
Apple TV source 
speakers: Kef 201/2
puffbojie
roberjerman
4,319 posts
 
What amp were you using with the Kef's before the Wadia?
roberjerman
4,319 posts
 
Does the Wadia amp have input level controls? If so, these may be set too low!
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
puffbojie

It’s all good the input sens is on the amp 2.4V Balanced 1.2V Unbalanced, and what you’ll find is the volume on the dac will be logarithmic, and after 80 it will go up twice as fast as it did before 80.
All this is good that your up so high on the digital domain volume control, as you run far less risk of "bit strtipping" (detail loss) if your up high rather down low in the count for the same volume.

Cheers George
Post removed 
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
Just an unfortunate not enough gain situation.
It’s not unfortunate, if there's enough volume at 80 it’s all fine, having the same volume at 50 is not going to sound one iota better.
Take heed of the last sentence.

Quote from Nelson Pass

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."


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