2. amps-preamps
  3. 1268737214

Who is using passive preamps and why?

Seldom has there been any discussions on passive preamps in the forums and although my experience with them has been limited I have found them so far to be very enjoyable and refreshingly different. They seem to fall into their own category, somewhere between solid state and tube. Finding a preamp that is satisfing has been difficult. Some active solid state preamps can be very good but they seem to inject grain to some degree in the upper registers and some tube preamps are not too far behind. So far I think they should at least be matched up with an amp that has sufficient gain which is often overlooked. Which passives are you using and with what amp? Why do you like them?
phd
phd OP
1,324 posts
 
Ngjockey, not everyone who owns a passive is passive. I live an exciting life. After slopping the hogs I return to my listening room where I quickly fall asleep enjoying my passive preamp. My corn field don't care what kind of preamp I buy!

Don't believe it.
cdc
1,845 posts
 
I have a P-L-P (pathetic little preamp) which is a 25k TDK motorized pot. At the risk of being called tin ears, or worse, my Adcom GFP-750 could switch between active and passive and the differences were virtually inaudible. Maybe becasue I listen at 60-70dB.
Active a tiny bit more dynamic, passive a tiny bit clearer/ less grainy.
pubul57
3,712 posts
 
The issue of dynamics is sometimes commented on when discussing passives, but I'm not even sure what that means. Does it mean that passives sound compressed, homogenizing the differences between soft and loud volumes in a performance? I'm not sure why that would be. I can understand frequency abberations due to impedance matches, but why would a passive ever be any less dynamic?
rrog
1,958 posts
 
Pubul57, I thought this thread was closed a long time ago and here you are still carrying one.

Maybe dynamics can suffer because of what I said in my very first statement here. The source is not designed to drive anything. The source signal is designed to flow freely with it's signal boosted by the preamp.

I think of it as an amplifier driving a difficult speaker load. The sound of the amplifier is compromised opposed to the same amplifier driving a very easy load. Now it sounds better in every way.
pubul57
3,712 posts
 
Maybe, but my CD player puts out 4volts in high setting, I would think that would drive anything without any help from a preamp. Impedance matching I get, "drive" seems to be a strawman as far as dynamics.
More to discover