Lean sound. What's the cause?

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.