Here is my humble prediction for the future. I know this may be little ot.
There will be dacs with 10Vrms or 20Vrms buffered outputs available in the future. Each speaker will have dsp engine with all the procesing needed, plus the dacs for each driver in multiway speaker. All built into speaker. No more analog.
There will be dacs with 10Vrms or 20Vrms buffered outputs available in the future. Each speaker will have dsp engine with all the procesing needed, plus the dacs for each driver in multiway speaker. All built into speaker. No more analog.
But what a glorious distortion! Pure ecstasy.
I pitty the fool with no preamp.
I pitty the fool with no preamp.
No, i would never dare to.You're just trying to harsh my buzz....
But who cares about the future, when only moment we can live in is now.
The folks stuck in the vinyl world still need one but for a DAC that puts out 2V FS all you need is a buffer. What’s important is the signal level that is required to bring the amp to its full output. The old pseudo standard was 1Vrms for full output for a power amp.
.. or even digital sources that are not overly hot.
I still love listening to vinyl, enough so that I have a pair of turntables.
Preamps also let us switch between different sources with the touch of a button or turn of a knob. I’m keeping mine around.
And then there are those who need their tone controls, like me.
I find a huge variation in the tonal mix of recordings and I like to be able to tweak it when needed.
+1
In my system there is a 1.000 bunch preamp that has been compared (resulting on the almost same SQ) to a 12.000 bunch preamp (that I won't name here) and which sounds great to my ears too.
However, since I unplugged it then the SQ of my system has improved to my ears.
I didn't sell it because I like having it 😍 , but it's there with the rest of the system, but disconnected.
Does one make so many sacrifices for a better sound and then accept that a preamp, no matter how good it is, is used to select two inputs and/or a cartridge?
Sorry if I don't think so.
There are separate RIIA pre-preamps for that, and unless one changes sources ten times a day you might as well "waste" two minutes switching inputs with cables, among other things, you also clean the contacts that way. 😉
Of course, the above is strictly IMHO/E.
Hi Jose, the point is not 2V rms but the need for a standard. Without standardization (like in the tube world) of line voltages and impedances one needs to marry devices to other devices equally non standard and the risk of low roll off occurs. Comparing will be difficult, comparisons will not be honest, volume control might be a tad sensitive, noise might be a sudden issue and your excellent sounding and measuring DIY device may seem the worst of the lot when it is overdriven by someones 20V rms output tube DAC. I have experienced this a lot in the past, there is a lot of plain autism found in fanatical technical hobbies with which one can not debate.
So the 2V rms is there since the eighties and it works pretty good to keep to that standard certainly with other gear keeping to that same standard. A preamp with gain is only needed when one has older gear mixed with 2V rms modern gear otherwise simple source selection with volume control and a buffer is adequate. Digital gear with built in "digital" volume control might perform best when set to its maximum output voltage too.
If you have just 1 source and never mix gear you can create your own system with 200 mV or 20 V rms and very high or very low gain devices but don't be surprised that newly bought devices won't perform like they can in your setup. You probably will lock yourself in in a system by this system choice, possibly in the system of the manufacturer or designer that steered you in that direction.
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Ideally we should have a preamp with a bypass for sources with volume control that bypasses the preamp. You would then be able to save 2 minutes switching inputs.
Sorry that I was unable to articulate better. The image (attached) shows spl level about 3 meters away. Room is 12ftx12ft. Volume pot is about 3 a clock position. What I meant to say is less signal attenuation. I feel like I am getting more of the sound. Usually you have to crank the music up for more detail, but in this case, I feel that I am getting more of the signal without higher spl. Less room reflections that way. I assume you are an analog person, not sure how to test this. I hope this info is at least as interesting as wood cable risers. 😁
thanks pa. I’ll order it, and report back!
That was not my intent with the post. I was only trying to engage in discussion about my VERY subjective experimentation. People like to try different gear all the time, they could try it and see if they like it. If it doesn’t meet their needs, they can always go back to 2vrms, since that is usually the standard across the board.
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This seems similar to my situation with a cheap bluetooth class-D amplifier: best quality is achieved by dialing down the analogue gain knob on the module, and maxing-out the digital gain upstream from the lossy bluetooth source.
Basically, it's yet another "minimum viable product", where a nuisance technical bug resulting in digital muting during quiet passages, was left unfixed and will never be fixed until the whole thing gets melted down for precious metals.
~~~
In other news: my latest power amp schematics all have 30:1 gain setting resistors instead of the usual 20:1.
Frankly, my sources are mostly headphone jacks from dumb-phones and laptops, pushing 0.5V peak, if that. Therefore x30 is necessary for a nice modest ±15V clipping point.
A nice side-project coming up in the pipeline is a microphone pre-amp. Raw 'shouting' levels were about 100mV peak, IIRC. It'll be a rare, all-analogue karaoke option just for fun.
It is already availlable: any pro dac with +24dbu outputs (12,27 Vrms) to drive a pair of F-4 in briged mode ( 'balanced mono' in F-4 manual), you've got it.
I know I'll probably get rotten tomatoes thrown at me, but anyway...
I solved this problem for myself by using a 'passive preamp' (really should be called an 'audio source controller') and designing my phono preamp to have 45dB gain instead of the usual 38dB or thereabouts. I got it so that the subjective volume level from vinyl records is about the same as the level from digital sources (even though those vary by quite a bit due to the Loudness Wars). The power amp I use is supposed to reach full power with 0.7V rms input or thereabouts.
In a vacuum tube setup I landed on a weird solution. I made a 'line preamp' with balanced outputs, something like Stu Yaniger's Impasse (mine was simpler, and likely not as good). The selector switching and volume control were at the input of that preamp. I had that driving a two-stage 6N6P LTP to push-pull 2A3 amp that required a little over 3V rms to reach full power. That was something like taking a Williamson amplifier and dividing it up into two boxes, first two stages in one box, last two stages in the second box. That PP 2A3 amp was sort of a crude version of an output buffer. Sorta, kinda. But it worked well. If I were to make that again, I'd use a little local shunt feedback around the input /voltage amp stage to tweak the gain to my liking. It's driving such a light load too (the split-load phase inverter).
I solved this problem for myself by using a 'passive preamp' (really should be called an 'audio source controller') and designing my phono preamp to have 45dB gain instead of the usual 38dB or thereabouts. I got it so that the subjective volume level from vinyl records is about the same as the level from digital sources (even though those vary by quite a bit due to the Loudness Wars). The power amp I use is supposed to reach full power with 0.7V rms input or thereabouts.
In a vacuum tube setup I landed on a weird solution. I made a 'line preamp' with balanced outputs, something like Stu Yaniger's Impasse (mine was simpler, and likely not as good). The selector switching and volume control were at the input of that preamp. I had that driving a two-stage 6N6P LTP to push-pull 2A3 amp that required a little over 3V rms to reach full power. That was something like taking a Williamson amplifier and dividing it up into two boxes, first two stages in one box, last two stages in the second box. That PP 2A3 amp was sort of a crude version of an output buffer. Sorta, kinda. But it worked well. If I were to make that again, I'd use a little local shunt feedback around the input /voltage amp stage to tweak the gain to my liking. It's driving such a light load too (the split-load phase inverter).
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Nah! At least not from me. I have less than $150 on sources, so who am I to judge! If you like it, and it works for your particular application, then that’s all that matters. What are you running as your power amp?