Dumb question......why do you need a preamp?


You'd think after 50 years I would know this, but I don't. Aren't today's integrated enough?

troutbum

With an integrated amplifier you do not need to use a preamp, but there may be reasons you might want to. If your integrated amplifier does not have a built in Phono section is one reason off the top of my mind to add a preamp.

All the best.

Two reasons to “need” a pre-amp

 

1) to deliver a particular sound that you like 

2) features that may be useful. A volume control would be most common.  
 

If you already have these then you do not need a preamp.  

 

 

Preamps do impedance matching which is very important. I've played the game hooking up DAC's directly to my Power amplifiers but in the end my active preamp always sounded better!

@erik_squires

A good example of having separates is an electrostatic speaker

Can you explain what this means, please?

The first step in amplification where you take a very small signal from a dac, cd player, or turntable into a big enough signal, line stage, to be recognized by the amplifier is a very delicate and specialized task that is often neglected. This task is done by the preamp. It can be incorporated into an integrated amp or a dac without the proper attention or resources it deserves. As someone who posted here, if you try a proper preamp, you will have your answer. Once that first step is done, how good or how bad, there is not much even the best amplifier in the world can do. So, in theory, preamplification to line stage is more important than amplification if you believe in the proverbial garbage in, garbage out.