I had a good experience some years ago in my sunroom system.
I ran a Mark Levinson 390s cd player directly into a Pass Aleph 3 amp, driving a pair of ProAc 1SCs. Supplemented at the low end with a REL subwoofer. Cardas Golden Cross interconnects and biwire speaker wire. The system sounded great.
The ML 390s had an analog volume control that preserved the detail of the music and it also had a digital input for another component that could be switched in. No preamp needed.
Another combo that worked for me was a bedroom system. My sources were a SAE 8000 fm tuner and a Sony disc player. I used a passive Promethius preamp that used a transformer for volume control, and this fed a Carver M-500t amp connected to a pair of Thiel 3.6s. Not expecting too much, I was surprised at the smoothness and dynamics of the setup. Not having an active preamp did not seem a problem.
One thing I have noticed is that most of my line level sources have more than enough voltage to play quite loudly through my amps. Most of the time, my active preamps are just attenuating the signal. Very rarely do I ever play music so loudly that I feel the preamp is actually amplifying the signal. If I lived in an apartment or someplace close to neighbors, I would never play so loudly.
I ran a Mark Levinson 390s cd player directly into a Pass Aleph 3 amp, driving a pair of ProAc 1SCs. Supplemented at the low end with a REL subwoofer. Cardas Golden Cross interconnects and biwire speaker wire. The system sounded great.
The ML 390s had an analog volume control that preserved the detail of the music and it also had a digital input for another component that could be switched in. No preamp needed.
Another combo that worked for me was a bedroom system. My sources were a SAE 8000 fm tuner and a Sony disc player. I used a passive Promethius preamp that used a transformer for volume control, and this fed a Carver M-500t amp connected to a pair of Thiel 3.6s. Not expecting too much, I was surprised at the smoothness and dynamics of the setup. Not having an active preamp did not seem a problem.
One thing I have noticed is that most of my line level sources have more than enough voltage to play quite loudly through my amps. Most of the time, my active preamps are just attenuating the signal. Very rarely do I ever play music so loudly that I feel the preamp is actually amplifying the signal. If I lived in an apartment or someplace close to neighbors, I would never play so loudly.