Definitely go balanced if you have any balanced sources. A balanced preamp with a single-ended source will still be better but not as good as all-balanced. ARC has made a lot of excellent preamps, with and without phono, which would be a good match with your amp. Just do a search and see what's available.
Preamp for ARC-Proac System - Is Balanced Best???
Hi Folks! I need some advice bad! I've been auditioning every type of amp out there for my Proac 2.5's, and the ARC VT100 mk2 tube amp keeps coming out on top. As many of said, you can't go too wrong with this amp. I've currently got a Rogue 66 preamp, Cardas neutral ref speaker cables, Harmonic Tech truthlink IC's, and a Cary CD308 CDP. An audio engineer friend was over last night and he looked at the amps schematic and said "Beautiful design, but you should be feeding this in balance mode rather than single ended. This amp was really made for balanced input". Looking at the tube topology, this appears to be so. So my questions are:
1) Should I expect a significant improvement in sound running it in balanced?
2) If so, please offer suggestions about the preamp. Optimally it would have a phono stage and a volume remote, and both single ended and balanced outputs - but I'm willing to compromise as needed. Especially the phono stage. If the price goes down sufficiently without one, I can get an external one.
Thanks. Thanks. Thanks!
1) Should I expect a significant improvement in sound running it in balanced?
2) If so, please offer suggestions about the preamp. Optimally it would have a phono stage and a volume remote, and both single ended and balanced outputs - but I'm willing to compromise as needed. Especially the phono stage. If the price goes down sufficiently without one, I can get an external one.
Thanks. Thanks. Thanks!