Yaqin SD-CD3 Tube Buffer

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What is the output impedance of the Yaqin tube buffer? If it is high-ish, and the combined input impedance of the main amp and the subwoofer amp is low, then the result might not be good.

Nevertheless, why don't you just give it a try to find out whether the result is good or not? It's not likely that you'll kill the buffer by feeding its output to two amps, and a splitter is cheap.

If the result is not to your liking, and you must use the tube buffer in the system to drive both amps, an option is to add another buffer with a high input impedance between the tube buffer and the subwoofer amp.

An alternative is to use the buffer for feeding only the main amp, and feed the output signals of the main amp through voltage dividers to generate line-level signals for the subwoofer amplifier. If the subwoofer amp can take speaker-level input signals, it would be even easier.


Kurt
 
Thanks guys.
The source output impedance is 500 ohm nominal.

The input impedance of the subwoofer amp is 10k

The input impedance of the main amp is 28k

The purpose of the buffer in my case is to raise the impedance that my Tortuga preamp sees, the higher the better so I`m hoping adding the Yaqin with it`s 100k will help.

I don`t know what all that means:confused:, I`m just forwarding some stuff that I`ve been told.
 
Your Tortuga preamp is a passive preamp with an impedance of about 20K Ohms, right?

I'd not insert a buffer between the Tortuga preamp and your main amp, because doing so seems to defeat the very purpose of using a passive preamp (from a purist's point of view, of course).

My suggestion is to get a buffer with a high input impedance (100K sounds pretty good), connect the output of the Tortuga preamp to both the main amp and the buffer, and then connect the output of the buffer to the subwoofer amp. The Tortuga preamp will see the combined impedance of the main amp and the buffer, which should not be much lower than the input impedance of the main amp alone.

The buffer does not have to use tubes and does not have to be expensive. If the buffer is only for handling the low bass range, the money you pay for the "tones" or "smoothness" of a tube buffer will be totally wasted.

Kurt
 
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Do you mean the Tortuga itself has 99K between its input and ground? That seems rather high for a passive preamp (basically a voltage divider), and seriously limits what you can use downstream. I'd not use such a passive preamp to drive the main amp by itself, let alone two amps together. But I guess you are limited by what you have.

A Yaqin tube buffer should be able to drive both amps together if its output impedance is indeed as low as 500 ohms and its input impedance is 100K.

Kurt
 
Well...It works ! sounds real nice too :)

I put the Yaqin between the Tortuga and the two amps.

Ran 1 interconnect out from the Tortuga into the Yaqin and then used a pair of gold RCA to RCA spitters off the back of the Yaqin to feed the main power amp and subwoofer amp.

Seems to have some extra kick and is louder at a lower number on the Tortuga display.

Thanks guy`s
 
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