Preamps can color sound considerably. Surprising?

@jumia McIntosh preamps include line stages. I am sorry but, I do not get the question ? 😕

Correction, they offer one solid state preamplifier with no phono stage , but no pure lion stage tube preamps

They always like to stuff things with a photo stage or headphone amplifier.

Not interested in solid state preamplifiers hey sixfrom McIntosh.  Have Mono blocks that are solid state I wish I could get them with tubes.  I think McIntosh is good for amplifiers but not much else. The processors they sell basically are marantz put into a Macintosh box.

@scm 

holmz ...The source output impedance is VERY low according to what I see listed for my ModWright 9.0X phono stage. Couldn`t find anything showing exactly what it is.

The amp`s input impedance is 28K ohms

The most important here is the listening level, and whether the interconnects to the amp is short or not.

Much easier if the passive to amp is a stereo amp and short ICs, then a long length to mono blocks across the room.

Every amp I own, and have owned, is / has been rated to reach full power with less than 2 volts at the input. If you have a good 2 volts to work with, impedances are well matched, and the system caters to your desired volume level ( s ), when does the preamp’s additional voltage kick in? Most preamps in most systems are still used in attenuation mode, ime.

Actually an amp requiring 5V would be better and the preamp needs to use less attenuation. Basically the lower the amp gain, the better.

Or the closer the preamp runs towards 0dB attenuation, the better.

Holmz ,

Clearly you understand impedance and volts and ohms, with respect to their relationships to all the various pieces of gear.  This is quite a feat to accomplish in my opinion.

Are you of the school that sees a difference between a longer speaker cable? I say this because I have 12 foot transparent speaker cables, and then I bought mono blocks which means I could've used a 1 m speaker cable. After spending $2500 for a speaker cable I wish I would've waited.  Also interconnects, the shorter the better?

do the lengths when they are 12 feet or less really matter when it comes to speaker or interconnect cables?

@jumia (I dunno) … all things equal, and cost not being a consideration, then IME (and in theory) one would want mono blocks are shorter speaker cables… especially for cable capacitance.

Some of the Linz designs (or weaving patterns) are pretty low in inductance.

But I think it is probably mostly lost when one hits the passive crossover, as there is a lot happening there, and the amp should generally be able to overcome capacitance and inductance.
However an active crossover should be a lot easier to damp and control.

How “hearable” it is, is uncertain, as sometimes I can believe I hear it, and at other times then sometimes I do not believe it. So i am not 100% certain.

With respect to ICs, the shorter the better, and especially with cart to phono stage.

If one is pushing a long distance between a preamp and amp(s) then they probably don’t want high capacitance cable and a passive preamp. If they are using a passive preamp, then they probably want to have the volume cranked up it, which means lower amp gain… if it needs to play quiet and loud, depending on the day and time, then a passive is not as ideal as an active preamp (IMO).

In your case, I’d suggest just putting a couple of 3’ pieces of speaker wire and try it. If it works, then sell the 12’ ones. I just got some cotton covered stuff from Jupiter Capacitor to try, but I could not find any bananas, so it’ll have to wait… and I am literally still running the lamp cord that I put in a year ago.
That 12ga cotton covered copper stuff is cheap enough to try.

But I am also trying to sell a couple of tube amps (mono block pair and a stereo amp), and if so I will go to XLR based mono blocks.

Clearly you understand impedance and volts and ohms, with respect to their relationships to all the various pieces of gear.  This is quite a feat to accomplish in my opinion.

Not really… a couple of electronics courses and most gear is designed to work as designed.
But it is not like, say a ski binding with a DIN7880 standard where they all conform.
Ideally all the sources would be some DIN with say 600 ohms output impedance, and all amps using another DIN specifying say 100k ohms input impedance.

However it is more like the Wild West with RCAs, and more standardised with XLRs and pro audio.

Adding in high capacitance cables, and long cables, are ways to coulor the sound… and totally ignoring what is happening inside of the preamp, the input and output impedances make a difference.

But the speakers are usually doing way more in terms of distortion, so I think starting there is generally more wise… and the more things that are lower distortion in the chain, seem to make it easier than trying to correct things with cables and coloured preamps.