Preamp Noise with High-Efficiency Speakers

Charles1dad Quote:"Anything inserted into an audio system signal path will make its presence known."

That's right, one of the best open/transparent sounds lately I have heard was from a old Musical Fidelity A3/24 dac that has such a beefy output stage (standard) that can give 6watts!!!, (modified output resistor from 47ohm to 1ohm)
This dac was directly attached to a pair of highend 108db horns from Italy (no power amps, no preamps), directly from the dacs output rca's to the speaker terminals.
The more active junk in the signal path the worse/electronic the sound becomes.

Cheers George

George it`s interesting how you dismiss the results of others who don`t agree with you. Grannyring and others on this site have put their money where their mouth is and actually purchased your component.Most of them thought highly of it but ultimately found short comings when directly compared to an active linestage in their systems.

Rather than graciously acknowledge their honest opinions, you claim they just prefer the added colorations they hear.A bit defensive and disingenuous don`t you think? Why can`t you admit they have discovered a few sonic flaws with your component when it was out performed by another component? there`s no shame in that, nothing is perfect,and some will prefer your device(it goes both ways,subjectivity).Do you believe you have superior hearing or that the others don`t know what live performing musicians truly sound like? Are they all wrong and you`re right? true to the source(as you claim) is a pale alternative to those components that reach deeper and further and provide the closer to real live music criteria/sound.Why would someone settle for less,tone,body,dynamics and vibrant timbre/harmonics(what Grannyring and others found lacking with the Lightspeed) in the name of "true to the source" which is less convincing in direct comparisions.Humility is a virtue.

Charles & George- Rather than argue about this, one could very easily conclude (and I think Grannyring and others, including myself who have compared the Lightspeed to active linestages have concluded) that the Lightspeed is one of, if not THE best values in high end audio. It's virutes are transparency and lack of coloration. It's shortcomings are timbre and dynamics but you have to spend perhaps 10X or more $ to substantially improve on the LSA. And George, you should be very proud of that!

Swampwalker,
There`s no arguement,and I`ve said his component has gotten much praise and compliments(Grannyring for example). My point is don`t be condescending and dismissive to those listeners who chose an active component rather than his.All components have their sonic compromises(to some degree) including his Lightspeed.

It's virutes are transparency and lack of coloration. It's shortcomings are timbre and dynamics but you have to spend perhaps 10X or more $ to substantially improve on the LSA.

I would say I can agree if the second half of your statement was attributed to passive preamps (a well designed TVC the exception) in general. I find in my system the LSA does not lack in timbre and dynamics. For reference I use the LSA with the Music Reference RM-10. My other system is Atma-Sphere MP-3 and S-30 amp. Sources are the same for either as are speakers. I could live with either of these amp/pre combinations, one costing about 5x less as the other. Sure there are differences in the sound, but they are much more similar than different. Ironically I found a combination of the LSA and S-30 to be less satisfying, although still enjoyable. It tided me over just fine while I waited on my MP-3.