2. amps-preamps
  3. 165668-2383

Reccomend a good preamp for me.

I have nixed the preamp for a while now with using only a DCS Rossini DAC going direct.  I have that in the back of my room and a 10M pair of balanced cables that run to my various amps I use.  I have been getting back into vinyl again and even a cassette player so I am in need of a preamp that will have at least one balanced input and 2 more RCA inputs.  I have been trying different amps and speakers lately also and think I will land on some kind of lower powered tubes and higher efficiency speakers.  I used to have a few nice preamps years ago and I always remember thinking the preamp was a big piece of the puzzle the heart maybe of the system.  PS Audio BHK looks good maybe or a Pass Preamp?  I'm out of the loop on preamps. 
128x128ejlif
prebs
19 posts
 
Bin considering the 07x FET for an uppgrade to my older JC2 (non bypass version) But as Im living in Scandinavia, the price for this preamp is $9630 so I might be better off keeping the JC2 and spend money elsewhere…. 
essrand
293 posts
 
I would consider these in order of increasing price:

Backert Labs preamps
Luxman CL38uC (probably best bang for buck with phono built-in)
Luxman CL1000
Nagra Jazz
Nagra Classic Preamp
Shindo Vosne Romanee

Given your listening preferences, stick to a tube preamp, and no matter what anyone says (believe me I have tried for years), get an active preamp, again tube preferably.

dmader48
11 posts
 
First a disclaimer: I make no claim for being a highly informed "stereophile".
I've owned McCormack audio gear for over 20 years. Steve McCormack is a very highly regarded audio designer. He now runs his operation as "SMc Audio" in CA. While still designing new gear, he also does lots of upgrading of his older, discontinued models. My suggestion would be to pick up one of his TLC-1 passive, line-drive preamps, which can be found for under $1K and have his guy, Pat, upgrade it. They rebuild to your exact requirements; sonic and budgetary. Great to work with. They just upgraded/rebuilt my DNA 0.5 amp; incredible results!
dmader48
11 posts
 
To add to my previous comment. Found a used TLC-1 online for $400 with great "review" comments by John Atkinson, detailing the feature/attributes of this unit. At this price and an SMc upgrade, one could have a tremendous preamp for $3K! With quality matching much more expensive units.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,567 posts
 
@ejlif The problem you have is that you need to drive long cables. That means that all passive control systems are out. It also means single-ended preamps are out.

You need a balanced line preamp, and further, one that can drive long cables. You might think that 'because its balanced it can drive long cables' but its not as simple as that. To do that, there are a number of hurdles that the preamp must clear and most in high end audio do not. There is a standard for balanced line operation; most high end manufacturers either ignore it or worse, don't seem to be aware that it exists.


Its called 'AES48'.


If your preamp supports AES48, driving the long interconnects is a walk in the park, and the cost of the cable won't amount to anything with regards to the sound quality. So when you look at these suggestions and talk to manufacturers, ask if their preamp supports the standard. If they don't know about it, or don't know, that is telling you that they do not.

I think there are four preamps suggested so far that support the standard. They are the Dan Sachs preamp (when used with its output transformer to produce a balanced output), the Benchmark and the two Atma-Sphere preamps. There may be others- ask the manufacturer when investigating!
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