[Review] Doing away with the preamp - AS DAX Decade and EAR 834P plugged directly into actives

I once put the Croft Vitale SC (pre) between the Dax and my the poweramp (the an Audiolab 8000S) and I quite like the result, it gave it an interesting 'edge' which was quite engaging at the time.

So, OK, successfully not proven ...

 

ta. I'll do that after 5pm ... back to work ...

 

i guess i should think about trying my decade through a pre - although to be honest as i'm very happy with the sound and have no analogue sources it's not really necessary. but if anyone has any suggestions for cheap decent pre's i'd be interested in their opinion. oh god this is a horrible disease we are afflicted with.
cheers


julian

 

just buy something less expensive to satisfy your urge to splurge cash..


like a new pair of tyres for your MTB for example, with funky blue walls..!

 

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

as an aside, It's worth noting that AS (meaning David Heaton) which/who are/is known for the quality of their/his pre-amp, delighted in saying that the best pre-amp is no pre-amp ...

Clearly for some the (unwanted) colouration that the pre may add adds is regarded as (desirable) colour!

 

ditton, i'd agree however there is an argument that at low levels the loss of bits that even the dithered volume control on the decade has will effect sound quality.
it's just a question of which 'effect' you want to put up with.
some have mentioned a hashness with directly connecting a dac this may be but i've not noticed this. i suspect because i have hybrid valve / solid state power amps which massage the sound.
cheers


julian.

 

Godfather used to run direct Until I mentioned I'd had a change of heart on this subject, he popped his Dax into a proceed and well, it wasn't as thin or emaciated.
All The Wadias now I recommend running pre, I even used one at the show

 

good man

 

Actually my change of heart happened before yours when I (indirectly and unknowingly) picked up your Minimax pre which 'couldn't hold a candle' to running direct on your Wadia. Putting it between the DAX and the Bryston was a magical experience - I got my music back! With the Bel Cantos I thought I would give the direct connection another shot, but couldn't get it to give the right sound despite changing cables, etc to massage things. In went the Proceed and all is honky dory again. It's also a convenience thing, even if the direct connection sounded better I wouldn't want to have to swap cables daily when I watch a movie.



P.S. What pre did you use at the show?

 

Nic Rhodes raised this a while back, and I took it up with DavidH. His response is that bit loss only occurs below -42db because of the up/over(?)sampling.

I agree.

 

This Hifi News review has a chart of linearity whilst using the volume control, which suggests it doesn't have an effect until you get quite low in the volume control (can't actually make out the level, but it looks low!):

http://www.audiosynthesis.co.uk/reviews/dax10_1hfn598.pdf

Dunc

P.S. - I'll probably have a play with preamps at some point. The local 2nd hand dealer's got some interesting ones in at the moment; might be worth just trying them out for curiosity's sake... (sigh)

 

I don't think bit loss is a problem here as I've tried setting -20 on the DAX and turning up the volume on the pre and it still sounds better than the DAX direct on -20. When running direct into the Bryston my volume range on the DAX was between -10 to -20. With the Bel Cantos it's more like -20 to -30. Still above the threshold according to David Heaton.

Yet another opinion, David 'Heuer' on AV Talk has a DAX Decade, huge Krell, big Wilson Benesch system and he said running direct sounded 'awful' because the volume on the DAX had to be kept low. He uses an Audio Research Pre with, he said, much better results. I guess he likes colouration too!

 

Maybe it was doing the right thing but was something unaccustomed?

 

NB the chart shown was corrected:

http://www.audiosynthesis.co.uk/reviews.htm

and click on <June 1998>

 

IIRC the linearity graph was correct, just the tech spec box was wrong.

Dunc

 

mea culpa