Preamp Noise with High-Efficiency Speakers

Whart and Triode: I may have to go through the lengthy process like yours to eventually get rid of hum/noise. I was thinking about Granite Audio Ground Zero yesterday.

Georgelofi and Atmasphere: There are pluses and minuses using an active preamp, and endless threads/debate about going preamp-less. I am fully aware that in recent years digital front ends have better and better output stages capable of interfacing power amp directly; and before I fix everything I have to live with the AMR DP-777 driving my power amp (Audia Flight 100) directly. But you never know what you are missing, and I've witnessed many times a good active preamp can do wonders to a system.

Ying: Just keep in mind that the Granite Audio thing is not really a total solution, but in some ways a 'band-aid'- and i had mixed results with it; on some system configurations with different amp and preamp it seemed to work better than others. Just sayin'. And, you really need two people to work it successfully- one to throw the various switches (exponential combinations, when you add in what gear you join on the same 'path') and one to listen to results. You also may have to order more of their grounding cables and longer lengths to get it to connect to various components. (and yet another variable is not connecting to some components). I bought mine back in 2007 or so, it is far cheaper than some of the esoteric external grounding solutions available today, but imagine if you are handy, you could come up with a DIY solution. ( Ralph or Almarg might chime in here), you may be fighting potential grounding problems within the components themselves. None of this is easy, but it's more labor than anything to get it sorted.
Let us know what you come up with. I hate hum!

Yingtonggao, just read this quote from Nelson Pass, I think we could all aggree that we all here with our combind wisdom pale into insignificance compared to him. Remember your FL100 takes 1.4v input to clip. Your AMR DP777 gives out more than 2v and you have 104dB sensitive speakers.

A Quote from the master Nelson Pass

We’ve got lots of gain in our electronics. More gain than some of us need or want. At least 10 db more.
Think of it this way: If you are running your volume control down around 9 o’clock, you are actually throwing away signal level so that a subsequent gain stage can make it back up.Routinely DIYers opt to make themselves a “passive preamp” - just an input selector and a volume control.
What could be better? Hardly any noise or distortion added by these simple passive parts. No feedback, no worrying about what type of capacitors – just musical perfection.
And yet there are guys out there who don’t care for the result. “It sucks the life out of the music”, is a commonly heard refrain (really - I’m being serious here!). Maybe they are reacting psychologically to the need to turn the volume control up compared to an active preamp.

Cheers George

The problem with a passive is that it can act to functionally reduce the value of the coupling cap that might be in the source, such as a DAC. In doing so this is how bass impact can be lost. The other problem is that the system will be a lot more sensitive to cable artifact. This is likely the why of Nelson Pass' comment.

In a high efficiency system, it is more elegant to simply not have the gain. Power amps typically have about 30 db because speakers might only have 87db efficiency. But what if the speaker is a good 15-20db more efficient? Then it makes sense to have less gain in the amp, so the preamp or source can have the volume control in a reasonable (higher) position.

If you think about it, amplifier and preamp manufacturers have a difficult dance; to have enough gain to work with lower efficiency speakers but be quiet enough to work with higher efficiency speakers too.

We solve the problem by offering a jumper plug for our amplifiers that replaces one of the voltage amplifier tubes, thus reducing the gain (and the noise floor) of our amplifier.

With regards to grounding: If your equipment is built correctly there should be no need to resort to exotic grounding solutions like a copper stake in the yard. 'Built properly' means that the chassis and the circuit ground are two different things. This has been challenging for a lot of high end audio designers; but if you are going to meet the directives for the CE mark or similar, this is a problem that will have to be dealt with.

Worth seeing if changes in location of preamp (and associated ICs, especially if not shielded) relative to surrounding gear and any other electric gear, power cords or appliances results in any change in the buzz level. If so, take note of where noise level is minimal and use that to help identify what the external source of the noise might be. Repositioning gear alone might be a practical solution. The further each piece is away physically from each other and other potential noise sources, the better. Flourescent and halogen lighting as well as dimming devices are also often culprits for causing noise and interference with other devices, as are many digital devices and devices with large power transformers, like many power amps for example. Use of mu-metal sheets to provide additional isolation is another cost effective option to help in many cases. I use mu metal as an external barrier around my phono step up transformer device. Low level phono sections/gear are the most noticeably sensitive usually to external sources of noise.

No doubt very high sensitivity speakers like Avantegarde up the ante in terms of need for that feeding them to keep noise levels minimal.