The future of preamps

Keith- Meet Al, our resident technical analyst and voice of reason on all things electrical/quantitative. He's not a manufacturer or designer. He's kind of like our Spock but with a love of music ,a keen dispassionate "eye" for techno-babble, and a willingness to help all of use non-EE types understand some of the basic science, math, and engineering behind things audio.

Swamp, you speak for many of us on this site in regards to Al.
Charles,

Keith- I hope you were not offended. I know how foolish I once felt when I tried to explain to a client how difficult and expensive it would be to build a certain type solution to a coastal erosion problem he was facing, only to find out later that:
1. the guy was one of the most experienced and competent architect/builders on the northeast and
2. he had more $ than god!
3. he was too much a gentleman to tell me either.

@ Atmasphere, Hi good to meet you, I took a peek at your products, impressive to say the least!, for some crazy reason my friend here, jmcgrogan2 believes I am in over my head, I suppose he does not know me enough to make that call, as far as the 3.58 volts min to input of my krell 700cx, I will again call krell and talk to Ray Munchler, the service manager to confirm if that spec is min or max input spec, I have had this conversation with him more than once, so I hope he does not think I have a bad memory! anybody can make a mistake, this is why I will ask for the third or fourth time, as I said, Ray said, the spec of 3.58 is what it takes to drive the amp, and it can take max of 18 volts to over load the input, I assumed the 3.58 was max spec too!, Thats when Ray munchler corrected me! another situation is that I cannot use typical tube pre-amps or sources direct to amp, or I would have to activate the coupling capacitors that are not active inside the amp to protect is from tube unstableness!, Its a direct coupled amp, a real one!, this is in my owners manual that I have, and Ray confirmed that as well, He also stated not to activate the coupling caps, they will degrade the performance of my amp, so he said make damn certain if you use a tube product, make sure it is designed to be able to work with the amp, he said they are out their, an example of what he says is this, a tube source with the tube buffers before transformer or transformers, in other words, the signal comes thru the transformers before out-put, now thats if I am useing a tube source with volume control direct to amp, not useing a pre-amp, I will post my findings from Ray here by tuesday, I do enjoy tube sound, so my question to you was, will any of your tube pre-amps work with this extrodinary amp?, Thankyou so much, Its a privelege to talk with you and an honor!

@ Almarg, Hi, I enjoy your input and post that I have read numerous times, I appreciate that you posted the krell 700cx specs, and explained them, kinda bailed me out here!I agree with what you are saying about the 700cx input spec, you said, sensitivity specs are usually niether min or max, they are simply the approximate input voltage required to drive the amp to its rated maximum output power. the miscommunication is here, when Krell said that 3.58 is min spec for input of the krell 700cx, that is the same as max input to be able to drive the amp to potential full power, however, the amp will take more voltage input into the amp that most pre-amps do for their out-put into the amp, and the 18 volts is the over load point to this amp to clip.,, Almarg, Can you look into this for me, the spec of 18 volts input to clip, this is the max input told to me over the phone by krell, you can do more of the math and engineering calcalating for me to find a explanation for me?, LOL!, I will never use over 10 volts to input anyway!, just currious to know my amp,, when I said that the 3.58 is the min that krell told me, they said that because all of their pre-amps put out around 6 to 8 volts for balanced operation, and this will not do nothing harmful to the krell 700cx, its the normal that I am told by krell if useing a krell pre-amp, regardless of the voltage input to drive the krell 700cx, I will not realize the power of this amp with out the speced gain you provided of the krell 700cx that a source direct to amp does not have, atleast I have not found a source with the gain I need to drive the krell 700cx, I enjoy the clarity a source direct to amp provides, but this is why I have said that the krell 700cx sounds to be half the volume its suppose to be, its still loud enough without the gain, LOL!, I just believe the amp will sound better with the appropriate db gain, do you believe that?, can you imagine the cost of a pre-amp that can do the clarity and realism a direct to amp source does with the gain I need?, thats a thought I do not like to entertain!, this is why I said, a pre-amp that would be to my liking would be very costly and you would have to provide more interconnects, in my case, very, very, exspensive, I use Taralabs zero gold, retail $14,500.00 new, around $5,000.00 to $8,000.00 used a meter balanced, yes, I bought My zero gold used, I am not that crazy to buy new, I do not agree with esoteric cabling pricing!, however, the I/C is worth what I paid used to me!, to keep the performance to my standards, I would want to buy another zero gold i/c for use with a pre-amp, there you have it, this entire conversation on this thread is a big deal to me$,, I have to be sure and carefull at the same time, this is why your input is most welcome to me, thankyou.