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Schiit Saga+...What’s the point of the tube?

Just wondering about this. I bought one used because I wanted a passive preamp with 0 gain and remote control. It functions fine and doesn’t seem to color the sound of my inputs at all whether I have it in tube buffer mode or not. 

So then why is there a tube? To sell more units b/c of supposed tube sound? It came with 5 tubes, several NOS American made ones from the 50’s-70’s and some of recent manufacture. I rolled them all and none of my listeners (4 including myself) could hear a difference. 

I’m not into tube voodoo after rolling these tubes and engaging tube buffer mode vs. “normal” mode. Makes me question the value of tube rolling in general. 

I know half of the replies will be bad puns on the Schiit name, but if anyone has a serious reply, I’d be grateful to read it. 
larshepping
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 

Schiit Saga+...What’s the point of the tube?

Just wondering about this. I bought one used because I wanted a passive preamp with 0 gain and remote control. It functions fine and doesn’t seem to color the sound of my inputs at all whether I have it in tube buffer mode or not.
That says to me the tube stage is very well designed, I’d still say though, it must be adding a small amount of second harmonic distortion to the sound, and the coupling caps must be quite transparent also.
Or the other hand it could be you have a very low res system.


My amp has an input impedance of 100k ohms. I’m not sure what that means vis-a-vis the Saga+. With the tube engaged, the Saga has an output impedance of 180 ohms. In passive mode, it has variable impedance with a maximum of 4.8k ohms.

If someone more knowledgeable could help me decode what this means, I’d be grateful.
This is a better than perfect match regardless of passive or active mode, the only thing is if you have cheap very long interconnects with high capacitance, in passive mode it "could" roll off the highs.


Cheers George
larshepping OP
34 posts
 
Thanks for your reply and explanation, George!
mesch
3,481 posts
 
Larshepping, most amps have an input impedance between 20K and 100K ohms. One need the amplifier input impedance to be at least a 10x larger value that the output impedance of the preamp driving it. This can be thought of as preventing the amp from 'sucking' the juice out of the preamp. 

Thus, as George said, you would be fine either way with your 100K amp driven by the Saga in either mode. 
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