jwb said:The great thing about DIY audio is that you can arrange things however you want
Right on.
Where are the divisions drawn when you are diying?
Isn't a volume control with a buffer just a line stage preamp?
Back when all preamps had a phono stage the term had much more meaning. The phono stage amplified, it switched, it controlled the volume and did tone, and then then there was another stage to recover what was lost in the tone controls and maybe a little extra for the odd device that didn't have enuff grunt or the lower output phono cart.
Now with no tone controls, devices that have lots of grunt, and the phono stage now part of the analouge kit, the pre-amp functions now just as a glorified volume control with a switch. Damn useful... but not always necessary.
And when one device covers over the worst sins of another device and makes the music easier to enjoy, isn't that a good thing? (IMO the CD did a lot to further the growth of tube kit -- the tubes somehow smoothing over the HF grunge inherent in a 44kHz CD).
dave