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Recommended Preamp for pairing an Adcom 555II Amp and Theil CS 3.5 speakers

My Bryston 0.5B preamp was inadvertently put down over the holidays by an incident now known as 'The Sippy Cup Mystery'.  Regardless of the cause, I need a new preamp for my system.  I am driving a pair of Thiel CS 3.5  (with the electronic bass equalizer) speakers with an Adcom GFA-555II amp.  The majority of the eclectic music (classical, 80s, folk, funk) being played on the system is streamed from iTunes through my Audioengine B1 DAC.  I have read a number of posts with various recommendations for the GFA-555II or the Thiel CS 3.5s but not for their paring.  Short of winning the lottery this week, cost is a factor. Any suggestions or directions would be very much appreciated.
iowanna33
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
I have tried the $49 Schiit Sys between my CD player and 555 and the sound quality was completely lifeless and flat as compared with my Adcom preamp and nowhere near the sound quality when I experimented with the tube preamp in there. The volume control on the Sys is also marginal at best. But it's definitely worth the $49 price when used as an input selector.

iowanna33  This all depends if you want the source to be transparent or you want to colour the sound, which a tube pre will do.

If you want to have it all, get the Freya and you have passive, solid state, and tube that you can change on the fly while listening, all with little or no gain, which in your case you don't need. Many here and on other forums that have bought it prefer the passive mode after they've lived with it for a while.
  
And in it you have the best volume control with the Freya which is 128 position switched relay volume control, better than any rotary volume pot, and it's all remote controlled, 3 x inputs, 2 x outputs all RCA or XLR. 
http://www.schiit.com/products/freya only $699 and you can send it back if not happy, win, win. 

Cheers George  
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
iowanna33 Here is a 6 page discussion on the sound of the Freya and do a bit of tube rolling in Australia.

https://www.stereo.net.au/forums/topic/116843-schiit-new-preamp-freya/

Cheers George
tubejunkie64's avatar
tubejunkie64
10 posts
 
I have a pair of 555 Mk2's driving a pair of Kef 107's and I use a Cary SLP03 with them. I replaced an Adcom GTP760 with the Cary and there's just no going back. You can find this pre amp for around $1000.
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
hifiman5
that the drive

Please explain to all here, what the difference is of the "drive" to the poweramp in electronic terms, whether it’s driven from a preamp output or from the sources output. when voltage output is sufficient enough for the poweramp to be clipped and impedance is a match is fine.

Nelson Pass:
"Think of it this way: If you are running your volume control down around 9 o’clock, you are actually throwing away signal level so that a subsequent gain stage can make it back up.

Routinely DIYers opt to make themselves a “passive preamp” - just an input selector and a volume control.

What could be better? Hardly any noise or distortion added by these simple passive parts. No feedback, no worrying about what type of capacitors – just musical perfection.

And yet there are guys out there who don’t care for the result. “It sucks the life out of the music”, is a commonly heard refrain (really - I’m being serious here!). Maybe they are reacting psychologically to the need to turn the volume control up compared to an active preamp."



Cheers George
unsound
7,310 posts
 

 When considering a pre that will be used with Thiel 3.5's I would suggest that one consider those pres that either have an extra analog tape loop and/or preferably have most of their design parameters based around single ended output, unless one either has two Thiel 3.5 eq's modified to mono balanced operation or one can find a better stereo balanced eq with at least 12 dB of boost (and good luck with that). Otherwise the extra money and effort spent on balanced operation will be for naught.

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