Hello There!
Thought I'd give you my thoughts since I am i n a similar situation. I have a Levinson 39 going directly in to my Conrad Johnson Premier 11A. Simple, Elegant, sounds great.
The real issue lies in where the volume attenuation occurs in your CD player. In the 39 it takes place in the analogue
domain , not in the digital domain. Based on my limited research, this was critical to not losing resolution/quality
etc etc and I believe the product literature on the 39 did a good job of explaining how and why. I think its available on levinsons' web site.
By adding a preamp with no other swithching needs all you are accomplishing is another means of adjusting the volume while adding two more links to the playback chain, preamp and interconnects.Though I am not a big believer in all the babble surrounding interconnects which seems completely unverifiable, unless YOU can actually hear the difference, I do believe a system is only as goood as the weakest link in the chain, which follows the same reasoning that simpler is better. With this in mind I would think that ifyou are planning on remaining a one source input kind of guy, your preamp dollars would be better spent on improving either your amplifier or speakers or both. This assumes your unit's volume control works within the analog domain and is not compromising quality with a digital volume control.
I've got almost 18 grand in my system and I auditioned a Linn Classic all in one cd amp with a pair of small revel monitors at 2000 a pair and I'd swear it got 95%
of the performance of my system for 20% of the price. Bottom Line is, if you like what you have who cares what the people with more money than brains have? I wanted a Premier 14 preamp because of all the great reviews etc etc but anytime I asked myself what I was getting for 3-4000$ the only answer I came up with was another box. What would improve my system would be more power for the signature 30's. Good Luck and Good Listening!
Rob
Thought I'd give you my thoughts since I am i n a similar situation. I have a Levinson 39 going directly in to my Conrad Johnson Premier 11A. Simple, Elegant, sounds great.
The real issue lies in where the volume attenuation occurs in your CD player. In the 39 it takes place in the analogue
domain , not in the digital domain. Based on my limited research, this was critical to not losing resolution/quality
etc etc and I believe the product literature on the 39 did a good job of explaining how and why. I think its available on levinsons' web site.
By adding a preamp with no other swithching needs all you are accomplishing is another means of adjusting the volume while adding two more links to the playback chain, preamp and interconnects.Though I am not a big believer in all the babble surrounding interconnects which seems completely unverifiable, unless YOU can actually hear the difference, I do believe a system is only as goood as the weakest link in the chain, which follows the same reasoning that simpler is better. With this in mind I would think that ifyou are planning on remaining a one source input kind of guy, your preamp dollars would be better spent on improving either your amplifier or speakers or both. This assumes your unit's volume control works within the analog domain and is not compromising quality with a digital volume control.
I've got almost 18 grand in my system and I auditioned a Linn Classic all in one cd amp with a pair of small revel monitors at 2000 a pair and I'd swear it got 95%
of the performance of my system for 20% of the price. Bottom Line is, if you like what you have who cares what the people with more money than brains have? I wanted a Premier 14 preamp because of all the great reviews etc etc but anytime I asked myself what I was getting for 3-4000$ the only answer I came up with was another box. What would improve my system would be more power for the signature 30's. Good Luck and Good Listening!
Rob