Which is more important: preamp or power amp? - Page 2

Excellent news XXII ! Now to the fun part which speaker and amp!

Congrats, the GS-X an EXCELLENT piece of gear. I use the earlier Headamp Gilmores myself, for both preamp and headphone amp duty: a V2 and a Reference. In my experience, you can surround them with some EXTREMELY high end gear and still not be left wanting at all for additional quality for that stage of the audio chain.

The one caveat is that I strongly prefer a good, smooth potentiometer volume control (for fine control) for use in speaker setups over the stepped attenuator.

Way off topic.
Mike did you get the Tannoy emails? Hows the new rig going?

bump
whats a a good phono preamp under 250?
i was looking at firestone and some others under 200, will i hear a diff?


thanks

Synergy throughout the chain of your system is absolutely critical. Nothing is unimportant. My experience with passive preamps is different from Lazarus. My sense is that, though they can yield a squeeky clean portal, as if one were to open a window pane and suddenly see without glass in between the view to the outside, they also have a tendency to strip the music a little too close to the bone for me. I prefer more meat on the bones of my music and using an active preamp has always been the best way for me to go in various systems. I am not speaking of coloration, but rather a certain richness of tone. It is difficult to describe without comparing directly for yourself. I've experience some similar impressions of Class D amps - though they're really easy to like on first impression, and I'd say I could happily live with one, when you hear them compared directly with a well-implemented Class A or A/B amp you get a sense of greater 'fullness' to the music. Sorry for the lack of vocabulary to describe this stuff. Not to say passives don't sound great...I'd personally choose an active, and I would personally choose to use one rather than any sort of variable gain digital source straight to an amp.

It all depends on which componant you want responsible for your system sounding like crap.

If your preamp stinks....then you will amplify rubbish with your amp and have even more rubbish.

All componants should match.

Vincent - SA-31 Hybrid Stereo Pre-Amplifier

Buy that preamp. $500

If you can afford the 331 amp, get that too! $1100
http://www.vincent-tac.de/en/product...er/sp-331.html


Prices approximate USD.

Some of the best new values in audio. Both come in silver or black. Both are tube/SS hybrid.


You can buy them at Audio Advisor - http://www.audioadvisor.com/products.asp?dept=220

If you already have a preamp and your budget is limited, I would look to buy an older B&K (the 4420, for example). Those amps go for around $400-600 used and sound really wonderful. Great bass response, frequency extension, and soundstage. You have to spend a lot more to find anything better. This is not a secret, either, as B&K 4420s that come up for sale on Audiogon sell quickly. A friend who owns a VAC 110 watt tube power amp, which sells for around $8K used, tells me that his B&K 4420 came shockingly close to the sound quality of the VAC.

I would avoid Class D amps -- yes, they are inexpensive, but they are an "acquired taste". Don't believe the glowing reviews of Wyred 4 Sound or Bel Canto Class D amps, for example.

I also would avoid a tube power amp if you are on a budget, because you will be spending money on tubes down the line to keep it running and your electric bill will go up, as they can consume a lot of power if left on.

I also think that tube power amps sound fairly similar to solid state class A/B power amps (whereas tube preamps tend to sound sound quite different in general than solid state preamps.)

While going straight from a digital source to a power amp is simple, I am in the camp that finds amp-direct solutions less musically satisfying than when a good preamp is inserted between the source and the amp. The volume control on digital sources is usually also digitial and digital volume controls attenuate the digital signal, meaning you lose information unless the volume control is turned all the way up, not an option unless you want to blow the drivers in your speakers. And digital sources with analogue volume controls tend to be pretty expensive. But if you already have a good headphone amp that will serve as a good preamp, this is not an issue.

I would also back investigating the B&K gear. First amp to push my 4 ohm stats HT system without strain. As mentioned, get your speakers matched to a good amp. Once you choose that, usually matching a pre/controller of the same manufacturer is a safe bet.

I'm of the opinion that no pre is the best pre but I've not tried speakers directly.

IMO. Source (Turntable), best preamp, amp/s, cables then speakers. You can always get speakers cheap from the audiophiles with "up-grade-i-tist"!!! They seem to have to buy the Mark 1, 2, 3,4,5,6 etc.....It's about the music.. Your best pre-amp (tube) for me will let your source breeeeeath!!!!

I personally believe the theory that Mr Tiefenbrun used to promoted the Linn Sondek; the source is most important followed by everything else ending up with the speakers as least important.  So if you have an incredible power amp and are giving it a horrible signal it will sound horrible, and similarly if you have horrible power amp you wont hear the incredible sound given to it by the preamp.

 

So to answer your question i would say that the preamp needs to be better than your power amp other wise it will be holding your system back.  So spend whatever money necessary on a preamp that would do that with the power amp in your end-game system.

 

-Doug