Thiel Owners

coop_301

I use a passive pre-amp ( attenuator and input selector )  with an all tube phone preamp and CD player powered by a McCormack DNA-250 without the need for more gain from a powered preamp .

Your Mark Levinson amp has more than enough power to forgo a powered preamp , if you go back at least 40 pages back you'll read about another Thiel / Spectal digital only owner asking the same question . 

The question is do you want any other features that preamps offer ?

Robert - a primary consideration is the length of your interconnects. Long interconnects place the burden of driving them onto your source components.

tomthiel

Good to see you here this New Year.  This will be your year to launch Thiel 

Renaissance. Another year for excellent service via Rob at CSS.

Happy Listening!

ydjames

Thank You for supporting Mr. Rob Gillum at CSS. Keep me posted as you massage the new 2.7 coaxial drivers into your existing loudspeakers.

Happy Listening!

vair68robert , 

Thanks for the info, I never even knew about a passive pre amp until yesterday, I'm curious about it and given your experience will look more into it.  Honestly I have no issue with using a DAC as the pre amp, just that you read reviews that gush over pre amps, and it makes you feel like "whelp, I guess without one I'll never achieve true audio nirvana".  I guess part of the pre amp appeal to me is based around my fear of anything with a digital display as I could have an all-analog pre amp, and a simpler DAC, no touch screens or LCDs needed.

I'll look through this thread more in depth over the weekend to read more about the topic at hand, appreciate the heads up!