2. amps-preamps
  3. 1360730082

hair brained idea and a hello

I was wondering if anybody had any info for some hair brained idea i have.

Right now i have a project rpm 5.1 with the stamdard pearl needle, rollunning into an upgraded interal cambridge 640 with upgreated sound chips and high quality ports.

Now i cant evenenjoy rather bright sounding vinyl sound.

I was wondering if anyone has "daisy chained" for the lack of a better term a tube preamp and a solid state amp such as the cambridge.

I am interested in what kind of change i would get at all trying to daisy chain these amps or if somebody with more knowledge or experience then i, as im a mid 20 year old just getting into this whole audiophile side of enjoying vinyl.

-any reading, knowledge, anything would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jabbles180 (adam)
jabbles180
polk432
1,142 posts
 
If you want better tube sound get a tube pre and a tube AMP. The amp make more of a difference.
steuspeed's avatar
steuspeed
501 posts
 
Using a tube pre-amp and solid state amp will give you some tube quality sound while maintaining solid bass output. This is a very common set-up. Pre-amp tubes can last much longer than power amp output tubes, so it is a good way to go. Also, it may be less expensive to upgrade a set of pre-amp tubes then power amp tubes. YMMV
p59teitel
314 posts
 
"Yes, I suggest you attend some remedial English classes. Your writing, spelling, punctuation, and grammar are sorely lacking."

And yet his question was perfectly clear. So why the need to bang on him over style points? He wasn't writing an essay for a grade.

To answer the question, yes, many here have mated tube pre-amps to solid state power amps to excellent effect. How any particular combination will sound is very dependent upon the gear involved, and you will need to propose specific combinations to get more helpful responses.
schubert
7,386 posts
 
Have lost several pairs of speakers to tube pre's I am wary of them.
jmcgrogan2's avatar
jmcgrogan2
6,346 posts
 
I was wondering if anyone has "daisy chained" for the lack of a better term a tube preamp and a solid state amp.

Yes, many, many, many people have used a tube preamp with a solid state power amp. Just mind your impedence matching. Minimum recommended is 10:1 ratio of amplifier input impedence to preamp output impedence. The higher the ratio the better the results.

Since you seem to be a Cambridge fan, let's use the Cambridge Azur 651A Integrated Amplifier as an example. The amplifier section has an input impedence of 47 Kohms, so any preamp with a output impedence < 4700 ohms will work fine. Remember the higher ratio is better, so 20:1 is better than 10:1, which means a preamp with an output impedence of 1000 ohms will work even better with this amp.

Have fun!!
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