The Best Preamp is no Preamp?

I'm using a TD124 a Decware ZP3 and MC240 cables to QSO 808 monitors. So simple. The gain is on the MC240. I was listening to a bunch of Al Greens old LPs yesterday. :-)

I added a C20, either or was heaven, the difference was not just tone control but, a variable loudness, bass contour with bass and treble control. Did it make a difference? BIGGER :-) What a difference a preamp can make.
I can set everything flat and it's as neutral as can be and a pitch black background. Samra C20, dead quiet. Little LP noise between songs.. 

Regards

Try listening to your digital preamp (dac) at low volume first before reaching the conclusion of not needing an analog preamp.

If you run short cables you can get away with this. But if you have monoblocks (which are useful for keeping your speaker cables as short as possible) then no so well. I've found that using balanced connections to the monoblocks and having short speaker cables got me better bass, more engaging midrange and easier to understand vocals.

You can't do that with a passive- it allows the cables to color the sound. Quite often sources like a DAC can't handle long cables either. But I've found over time that the quality of the preamp has an enormous affect- and the length of the cables has nothing to do with it. Some are terrible- and so using no preamp at all is better, and some are great and actually sound a lot better when used.

op

this, as you can imagine, has been discussed numerous times on this board

pls use search bar, find old discussions, which i believe you will find most informative 

@mikelavigne made a series of replies that i personally feel is the last word on the subject

Experimentation is good ;-) ..but limited to a specific combination of gear, especially the ability of the source to drive the amp…. That gear as Ralph astutely points out includes cables. Putting a super high quality attenuatior near the amp input is probably best. The comment about super short speaker cables is master class ;-)

You can get NOS Nobel potentiometers from Music Reference, search pot in a box,  

jim