As mentioned before, it is system-dependent. We also forget the rest of the system:
Subject A
you have (hypothetical) a pair of focal sopra 2 and you do a dac as a preamp, i do not see a reason why that would not work and provide satisfying results using a decent dac as preamp
Subject B
You have Focal Stella Evo and are using the same dac as subject above into your preamp.
Any idea how much difference you will hear with both set ups?
Subject A will get a good presentation that will satisfy his needs while Subject B will be underwhelmed because a speaker of the caliber of the Focal Stella Evo WILL tell you: " i can give you a better soundstage than this, better bass than this, more impact, i can fill your bedroom with sound even though i am sitting in your living room, but this dac wont allow me to so i am giving you just facts".
See, that is something that unfortunately MOST people won’t have the chance to hear for themselves because you almost (again, almost) have to own multiple speaker of different tier groups to understand this phenomenon due to the fact that you can switch them out in your room. You can hear this quite easily in your room where YOU can control the variables.
Last night i was listening to the 13a and i was quite amazed how much better things got after adding the preamp. i actually sat and listened for about an hour straight. I then brought out the Alexia 2s after a 2 week hiatus and positioned them. I was SUPPOSED to be like "omg" this is ridiculously better and guess what? that is not totally true. I gained more clarity but i could hear the imperfections of the recordings, the soundstage was good, but it did not blow me away as i remembered it before. As a matter of fact, and to be transparent here, i felt like the alexia 2s only sounded "decent" and i heard crickets in my head. That said, my brain immediately went to these thoughts:
-Speakers need time to settle in the system after not being used for some time, drivers are cold,etc (fact)
-You are using a Merrill Preamp
- When Alexia 2 blew you away, you were using Momentum HD
-Is the Alexia 2 so revealing that i am hearing my weak links which were not so apparent with the logans?
- Why is the bass giving me a headache? is it time to continue to move the Alexias a little more into the room to balance out the bass better?
These were REAL questions i had last night after not listening to these speakers for 2 weeks and i came to the conclusion that i need to keep working on the Alexia’s placement AND yes this answered my question once again that as you go up the ladder, good sounding components with more affordable speakers often times WILL NOT MAKE THE CUT with better, more resolved speakers. More resolved speakers won't tolerate subpar supporting cast.
A person using a focal sopra 2 (again, this is a random example) does not know WHAT a Wilson Alexia 2 can do in terms of scale, soundstage, depth, height and width, etc so they do not have a way of comparing how good or bad things sound.
We can also look at it like this:
I can bring my DCS Rossini to your system which consists of a pair of KEF Ls50 bookshelf speakers with a PS Audio Dac and you might be like "WOW i can not believe how close they sound!!!"
yes, you are right, you can't tell much of a difference in your system, but how about doing this on a more revealing system? You would be able to hear how a Chord Dave is not really at the level of a DCS Rossini.
Subject A
you have (hypothetical) a pair of focal sopra 2 and you do a dac as a preamp, i do not see a reason why that would not work and provide satisfying results using a decent dac as preamp
Subject B
You have Focal Stella Evo and are using the same dac as subject above into your preamp.
Any idea how much difference you will hear with both set ups?
Subject A will get a good presentation that will satisfy his needs while Subject B will be underwhelmed because a speaker of the caliber of the Focal Stella Evo WILL tell you: " i can give you a better soundstage than this, better bass than this, more impact, i can fill your bedroom with sound even though i am sitting in your living room, but this dac wont allow me to so i am giving you just facts".
See, that is something that unfortunately MOST people won’t have the chance to hear for themselves because you almost (again, almost) have to own multiple speaker of different tier groups to understand this phenomenon due to the fact that you can switch them out in your room. You can hear this quite easily in your room where YOU can control the variables.
Last night i was listening to the 13a and i was quite amazed how much better things got after adding the preamp. i actually sat and listened for about an hour straight. I then brought out the Alexia 2s after a 2 week hiatus and positioned them. I was SUPPOSED to be like "omg" this is ridiculously better and guess what? that is not totally true. I gained more clarity but i could hear the imperfections of the recordings, the soundstage was good, but it did not blow me away as i remembered it before. As a matter of fact, and to be transparent here, i felt like the alexia 2s only sounded "decent" and i heard crickets in my head. That said, my brain immediately went to these thoughts:
-Speakers need time to settle in the system after not being used for some time, drivers are cold,etc (fact)
-You are using a Merrill Preamp
- When Alexia 2 blew you away, you were using Momentum HD
-Is the Alexia 2 so revealing that i am hearing my weak links which were not so apparent with the logans?
- Why is the bass giving me a headache? is it time to continue to move the Alexias a little more into the room to balance out the bass better?
These were REAL questions i had last night after not listening to these speakers for 2 weeks and i came to the conclusion that i need to keep working on the Alexia’s placement AND yes this answered my question once again that as you go up the ladder, good sounding components with more affordable speakers often times WILL NOT MAKE THE CUT with better, more resolved speakers. More resolved speakers won't tolerate subpar supporting cast.
A person using a focal sopra 2 (again, this is a random example) does not know WHAT a Wilson Alexia 2 can do in terms of scale, soundstage, depth, height and width, etc so they do not have a way of comparing how good or bad things sound.
We can also look at it like this:
I can bring my DCS Rossini to your system which consists of a pair of KEF Ls50 bookshelf speakers with a PS Audio Dac and you might be like "WOW i can not believe how close they sound!!!"
yes, you are right, you can't tell much of a difference in your system, but how about doing this on a more revealing system? You would be able to hear how a Chord Dave is not really at the level of a DCS Rossini.
