2. amps-preamps
  3. 179899-155632

Preamps can color sound considerably. Surprising?

Had the pleasure of listening to 4 hi end preamplifiers this weekend. And each preamp sounded very nice. But they were different. Each preamplifier has different circuitry and within the frequency spectrum there was more vibrancy in some areas versus other areas. Amplifiers are the same way.

It takes a while to appreciate sound differences between preamplifiers. And then you got the issue of Breakin which further changes the color.

clearly designers are playing around with all the internal circuitry in a manner that hopefully will be appealing. Clearly, these units do not get out of the way when it comes to moving a signal through the box.

I think solid state is more susceptible to coloring versus tubes. Tubes color sound as well.

It's all about marketing different ways to color Music. This isn't necessarily bad but it's never really talked about this way.

 

 

 

jumia
jtcf's avatar
jtcf
1,617 posts
 

+1 tablejockey. Choose the one that compliments the other colors.

elliottbnewcombjr
5,304 posts
 

I use 'Prefer' rather than 'Better' regarding variations and my personal selections. When several friends agree with you, that gets close to 'better', but still ....

overthemoon
417 posts
 

In my experience preamplifiers are as impactful as a source.  I added a McIntosh C2600 versus a NAD C375 BEE integrated AMP and it was very noticeable and frankly reinvigorated my listening habits.

jumia OP
528 posts
 

Guess a lot of it is how the harmonics are handled. Tubes being a lot less harsh then solid state.

mulveling's avatar
mulveling
1,866 posts
 

Absolutely. And this shouldn't be too surprising - you can roll single parts like caps and hear a difference, so why wouldn't whole different preamps sound different too?

At my home audio playground I have 3 relatively high end (not ultra-fi) preamps, 3 amps, 2 phono stages, many cartridges and SUTs. Each component has its own distinct sonic fingerprint. When I take a component to my buddy’s system - very different room & system - the sonic fingerprint follows. Cables have this too, but to a lesser degree. Different combinations of components obviously adds to the variability and complexity - some are surprise combinations that work better than expected, and others that are worse.

The so-called implications of this don’t bother me a bit - I’m not in the pursuit of "ultimate truth" like some self-important amateur philosopher. I’m seeking different and better audio experiences for my personal musical enjoyment. My experience with great-measuring darlings of the ASR crowd (Benchmark, RME) has been bad, so I don’t even care if that represents "truth" - it sounds bad to me and I don’t want it.

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