are preamps unsexy?

I may well be proved wrong by the evidence but I get the feeling that discussions about preamps seldom come up here. Sources are possibly top of the list as perhaps the most interactive, and tweaky, bit of the chain. Speakers are a very visible, in your face purchase, power amps are kind of macho ("I've got more watts than you". actually I probably have now ), so these all come up regularly. Not to mention the thrills and spills of cables and supports.. But why not preamps? Is it because people don't feel they make much difference? or is it a reaction against HiFi Plug spending a disproportionate amount of time on them (invariably called line stages there, which sounds much more inaccessible)?

 

There was a fair bit of discussion of passive pres a while back when I got mine. I guess they just tend to generate less interest than sources or poweramps for whatever reason.

Michael.

 

i must say pre amps don't get discussed much. except that audionote m7 a few threads back.
that thread did start me thinking, just how much of a difference does a pre amp make?
i suppose the signal is still very small at that point, so theoretically one would presume easily mucked up, but at the ssame time it can't create what isn't there. which is why the statement about prefering to listen to cd through the m7 than vinyl without it seemed an extreme one. unless there is more to it than that..... thoughts?

sorry i can't attribute the qute and thread to the rightful owner, but i can't be bothered to look it up....

 

another thing, besides the source, the pre is probably the bit of kit one has the most contact with. surely then a tactile nice bit of kit should be more sexy!!!

 

you're right, i have most of my hi-fi budget tied up in my pre (and it's associated psu's) and i hardly ever think about it. to be honest it's one of those components that i just think is good enough - if i ever start not hearing changes in my other kit (especially sources) i'd look into changing it but then i'm locked into a naim amp thing so may be atypical.
cheers


julian

 

I certainly think my preamp is sexy:



Michael.

 

maybe it's because they're just supposed to pass the signal through without mucking it up - so praise is negative, eg 'you should check out my pre - you can't hear it's there! ' doesn't really stir the blood... now for tactile you want a graphic equalizer...

 

I think mine looks good -



Sounds good aswell.

 

I thought preamps weren't supposed to "sound"

Michael.

 

my Orca does look nice (although once it's in a rack you can't really see its unusual shape). sounds good too, and there was a comment in a mag recently that Michell's new 'never connected' power supply mod improves it further. the 'unsexy' comment was less to do with looks and more to do with relative lack of interest in upgrading / discussing pres compared with other items

 

pl direct me to earlier discussion on passive pre-amps (or give me a clue for 'search' option).

I'm particularly interested in the arguments in favour of active pre-amps.

 

Would be fairly useless if it had no sound

 

this thread which was my review of my passive pre has quite a bit of info and links.

Michael.

 

so, the m7, i'm still unsure how it is supposed to do its "job" of gain and switching and still have such an impact on sound?
what percentage of your budgets went on pre amps (obviously excluding those to eschew pres for direct connection)
that is where i spent the least in my system, and i wonder if that represents a weak link?

 

My issue with preamps is how few of them make an effort to provide even an optional phono stage. Or a balance control. Or a mono button. And remote volume control as a minimum. And a decent number of inputs and at least one tape out. Apart from Linn, Naim, Quad and a few others, hardly anything on the market nowadays offers all of these features, all of which seem to me to be an important part of preamp-ness.

-- Ian

 

The only "must have" features of a preamp for me are remote volume and some way of achieving accurate unity gain that is unaffected by my AV remote - doesn't have to be a dedicated AV bypass.

As for the other features you mentioned:

- mono button: ok, can see the point for mono recordings and early "ping pong" stereo recordings.
- balance control: who really uses these and why? Can't the problem be resolved with speaker positioning?
- phono stage: I would have thought most people who are into hifi enough to be buying a separate pre are unlikely to settle for a built-in phono stage and get an external one anyway.
- tape out: can't see many people have a use for one these days other than perhaps for use with a headphone amp.
- decent no. of inputs: 4 should be enough for most people (CD, TT, Tuner, AV).

Michael.

 

i don't mind pre amps not having phono stages, because i think it's probably not a bad idea having a isolated power supply for such a low voltage signal, similarly having the circuits physically isolated from the rest of the system seems like a fundamentally good idea to me too.
but then again i would probably say i prefer the minimalist approach (less to screw up the music / Keep It Simmple Stupid, etc.)

 

Phono stage: the point is, good preamps used to have good phono stages. I mean, really very decent. You have to spend a not insignificant amount of money to better the MC stage in an older Naim preamp, for example. That's partly why they were relatively expensive items. A major part of preampness has been removed by removing the phono stages but the boxes haven't come down in price.

Balance is reasonably useful, not all rooms are symmetrical, and not all recordings are perfect either. My left speaker is nearer the side and rear wall than my right speaker, due to the way the room is laid out. Assymetrical speaker positioning solves it, but there are still recordings that would benefit from a gentle nudge of a balance control. (For example, on large parts of my recording of Mingus at Antibes, virtually the whole band are almost entirely in the left hand speaker, because of some poor mixing.)

A mono switch is pretty much essential for mono vinyl playback, to minimise groove noise when playing a mono record with a stereo cartridge, something I find I'm doing quite a bit.

Tape out: I can't be the only person who uses a headphone amp and burns CDs from vinyl. I can live with one tape out and a splitter box, but two would be nicer.

Inputs: I use 6 (phono, CD, tuner, TV, DVD, HD player/recorder). All these sources get used a lot, apart from the TV...

-- Ian

 

i will grant you that a mono switch would be nice for the "ping-pong" early stereo, with drums all on one side and everything else on the other, but in my experience balance controls / circuits are usually so poorly executed that they have a detrimental effect on the sound.

 

Ian's ideal preamp would appear to be the Linn Kairn. Which is now I think only available secondhand...

MC/MM, CD, Tun, Aux, Tape1, Tape2, balance, volume, mono, mute, unity gain, remote, adjustable gain per input, one tidy box.

They don't make 'em like they used to...

Paul