Preamps with two main-outs


Question for folks with two separate stereo amps driven by a single preamp. My preamp has two main outputs feeding two separate amps - one stereo and one pair of monoblocks, driving two pairs of speakers in two different rooms. Is it normal to need to turn on all the amplifiers to play any music? In other words, I can't just turn on my stereo amp to listen to music in one room. Its all or nothing. Fortunately the mono amps (MC2200) have volume control and I can turn them all the way down but can't do that for the stereo amp for the speakers in the other room. I was wondering if this is normal for all preamps with multiple pre-outs or its dependent on a particular preamp model. If it matters, the preamp is a NAD C165BEE. Thanks.

P.S. The second main-out has a little knob for gain control but its on the back of the preamp next to the ports and not practical to use for this purpose.

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Showing 1 response by deepee99

My stereo pre-amp (Sachs DS-2) has two outs, with differing caps on each pair. I've no clue either as to where the coitus-interrupts electrons go if you just snaggle up to one pair, but Don Sachs' suggestion is: try both and if you're still befuddled, hook up a Y connector to each channel-out pair and see what happens.
Being of the tube world, for me, output impedance is always a concern. Are you piping into a 300K ohm amp input (tube) or a 10k ohm sand amp.