Lean sound. What's the cause?

Coincidence ! I've tried in my system many preamps a few months ago. Calypso, VTL 5.5, ARC 17LS. Ended up with a VAC Standard LE because availability of one unit in mint condition at a bargtain price near my location. A little bright, forward playing and very dynamic unit. With tube rolling, got it to play to my tune. Replaced it by a Premier 16 LS2 recently only because of the ridiculous price I paid for the latter. You're dead on about its signature though, so I still keep the VAC in case of. But.......

In all the trials I have done, the one unit that impressed me the most for its overall qualities is the VTL 5.5. A very nice mix of warmth and dynamics. Its like listening to a CJ with more punch. I wondered if it is because of the double mono configuration. Could enjoy my soft jazz as much as rock on this thing. I tested it for about six hours in two listening periods. The pleasure of trying several albums on it made me forget to assess its soundstage quality though.

Unless one spends BIG bucks on a multichannel receiver, these things necessarily compromise sound quality. In particular, volume controls are critical to sound quality and good ones cost a lot of money. So, most multichannel receivers go with cheap attenuators because that one component would otherwise swallow up a big proportion of the parts budget.

It's hard to guess how lean any particular component will sound in any particular system, much less, what "lean" means to you. Typically for me, it is not that cheaper solid state is tonally lean (weaker in midbass) as such gear tends to sound brittle, harmonically bleached (instrumental color, overtones seem stripped away) and mechanical sounding. Better solid state gear that avoid these problems tend to be a touch polite and dull (e.g., my friend's Hovland linestage, my Levinson Ref. No. 32). I also have a Placette Active linestage which I actually think is pretty good sounding, though just a touch hard sounding. Amoung solid stage gear, I generally like the sound of Ayre gear.

I currently run a tube linestage (Emotive Audio Epifania). I generally prefer the sound of tube gear myself. But, there is no easy way to characterize the sound of tube gear, particularly since tube linestages are MUCH more unpredictable in how they match up with other gear. The spectrum can be quite wide -- from extremely lean (e.g., most Audio Research gear) to extremely warm (e.g., Cary SL98). It's hard to say what you would like and what would work in your system. Personally, I've heard good tube linestages from VAC, Joule Electra, Shindo, Kondo, Audionote (uk), and VTL.

Thanks for all the comments. What I mean by the "lean" sound is in the comparative sense, not in the absolute sense. Unidisk SC has a built in volume control, so I can bypass the preamp and compare the results. I thought it sounded leaner with the preamp in the chain than without. MAP-1 sounds pretty neutral otherwise, and it doesn't add or take away much in the sound.

Jylee,

Is there a reason, then, that you need a linestage? Do you run other sources? Minimizing unnecessary junctions, such as interconnects and rca jacks, all the switching in a linestage, etc. might improve sound. A friend who uses a very good tube linestage has tried a number of tweaks to improve the sound. What he found was that even some very pricey switches for selecting sources degrade the sound, so instead, he bypassed the input selector and manually switches interconnects when going between phono and CD sources. Just another reason to minimize additional junctions/components if they are not necessary.

I recall that one manufacturer of amplifiers (I think it was Charlie Hanson of Ayre) stated that, in the right system (compatible impredances, short runs of interconnects) passive linestages or no linestage at all (like your use of the Linn's built-in attenuator to control volume) can be superior to active linestages of comparable price. The advantage of active linestages (better dynamics and sense of liveliness) is usually evident only when the design is substantially free of compromises (i.e., expensive).

Larry,

I agree with your assessment. I like the simplicity in the setup with Unidisk SC driving the amps directly, and it served me well.

The reason I've added a preamp is because I have recently added Accustic Arts DAC to the system. For red book I use the DAC with Unidisk used as a transport. The red book sound has improved. But it came with the added complexity in the setup as I need to switch between Unidisk and DAC for playing SACD or red book. So I gained some and lost some. The red book has improved at the expense of slight loss of bass in SACD.