@laaudionut @cheeg I'm a little surprised with your experience with the Hegel Hd30 without a Pre. I have an HD30 in my system and I feel it's fantastic DAC but a while back I was chasing some noise in my system so I removed my Pre-amp and went DAC direct for a few days. It was almost unlistenable with out my Pre amp. I feel the HD30 with a tube Pre sounds best, I ran a CARY slp05 and just recently changed to an Audio Research REF6.
DACs that do well without a preamp
I am looking for a DAC to feed my DNA-1 gold power amp directly, streaming Qobuz or Tidal from a Bluesound Vault. Budget is $1-2K; would consider used, if worthwhile. Current contenders are Benchmark 3 HGC, Brooklyn DAC+, Gustard x26 pro, Holo Spring 3, Musetec 004 and Pontus ii. Looking for clean, detailed, uncolored sound that "lifts the veil". What are the qualities I should look for to drive an amp well, without a pre?
- ...
- 61 posts total
Frequently it’s just that the passive preamp sections usually included in the DACs don’t have sufficient output to fully drive the amp it’s hooked up to. As always, it comes down to proper system matching. Personally, I’ll always use a separate stereo pre as I find it to be a critical component to get the best sound out of my system. But that’s me. |
A great preamp with a fixed level DAC has always performed best for me. There is no substitute for a great preamp, it is more than just a volume control and switcher A really good one can transform a system into next level sound quality . There are so many great speakers and amps not being utilized to their full performance potential because they don't have a great sounding preamp in front of them. |
@alan_a , like everything in our esoteric hobby, "your own results may vary". In my case, I connected my HD30 directly to a Coda Model 11 and fed to a pair of PSB Stratus Golds and I was very pleasantly surprised with the sonic results. Perhaps in your experience there was a poor match with the gain level of your amp? I can only attest to the sound quality that I heard. And yes, in may main listening room, I have a Lumin streamer connected to a tube preamp paired with a solid state amp. |
Agree fully, I run a tube pre and tube amp so may have just been predisposed to a certain sound that completely changed when the preamp was removed. So maybe not bad just different enough for me that I didn't like it. The HD30 doesn't seem to get much attention but I've demoed several other dacs in attempt to better it and dollar for dollar I haven't found a better unit. |
- 61 posts total