Malcyg
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- May 5, 2017
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Aassuming the power amp has a sensible input, what can a pre-amp possibly do to what comes out of a DAVE except lose music?
Logically, you are right, but it’s not definitive as there are too many variables involved including personal preference and taste.
There is only ever one way to be certain what works best for you and that is to ignore what everybody else says and use your own ears to decide. This has always been my own golden rule although I actually ignored it myself with regard to Chord DAC’s for the same reason that you are citing - transparency trumps all. Except I found that sometimes it doesn’t. I run my BluDave directly into a power amp and have always been very happy with the sound. I always ran headphones directly out of Dave but was never entirely happy with it but I just assumed it was as good as it gets because of the transparency aspect. Anyway, I have increasingly moved to headphone use over the last year or so which led me to looking into headphone amps - and I find both my BluDave and H2Go can benefit quite significantly when fed through a headphone amp. YMMV.
So the best answer, as unsatisfactory as it may be, is to try it yourself and see what you prefer.
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