If I repeatedly question what I consider to be ridiculous and/or overstated claims of sonic benefits derived from any mysterious source, that’s simply a consistently aware point of view. An agenda implies that I’m on some sort of campaign against tweaks and I’m not…if covering your gear with axel grease or making cables from uranium is your thing, well good for you. If you claim in 10 paragraphs it makes your hifi rig superior in every way to what it was before you boiled it or froze it, I might venture to ask why that is. If you take everything anybody says about the wonders of "special" fuses or graphene on everything, and not at least wonder why a designer decided this was a "thing," you may lack the ability called "critical thinking" in which case your intellectual diet is being spoon fed into your mellon.
This is for Georgehifi especially but others can chime in.
I am buying Dynaudio C-1 Platinums and would like an ideal amp. Which would you choose? I prefer solid state. Separates or integrated. If you could recommend a few optimum choices that would be great. Based on my short couple years on here you strike me as very knowledgable on the subject. My dealer wants me on Pass Labs. Incidentally right now I have the Devialet 400 and I’m pretty sure you are not a fan of this type of amp. Any of your wisdom is appreciated. Thanks, Mike
- ...
- 191 posts total
georgehifi ... let the source be heard for what it is, without any added colourations with a transparent passive preamp ...As noted by @atmasphere above, passive preamps commonly suffer from their own problems that can easily affect the sound, and in a negative way. It is simply mistaken to believe that an ostensibly simple passive preamp is less colored than a more complex active preamplifier. |
I guess ‘the absolute sound’ is not my only goal. I want the music to sound good to my ears. If ‘coloration’ does that then so be it. These ‘auditions’ you speak of don’t exist. At these audio stores they follow you around like you’re going to steal something. After five minutes if you don’tsay that you’re going to buy the speakers they get frustrated with you. I have met a dealer that works out of his home that is much cooler about it though. |
passive preamps commonly suffer from their own problems that can easily affect the sound, Rarely, not commonly, around 10% of the time there can be mismatched impedance's when the source has tube output stage which is too high in output impedance, or it's output coupling cap is too small, which will give a very high output impedance at low frequencies. These types of sources direct, would be also mismatch into many Class-D amps as well, as many are 10-20kohms input impedance, just like a passive. Cheers George |
- 191 posts total