I had a friend, Murray Zeligman, who once wrote an article named 'Color Me Perfect'.
Preamps can color sound considerably. Surprising?
Had the pleasure of listening to 4 hi end preamplifiers this weekend. And each preamp sounded very nice. But they were different. Each preamplifier has different circuitry and within the frequency spectrum there was more vibrancy in some areas versus other areas. Amplifiers are the same way.
It takes a while to appreciate sound differences between preamplifiers. And then you got the issue of Breakin which further changes the color.
clearly designers are playing around with all the internal circuitry in a manner that hopefully will be appealing. Clearly, these units do not get out of the way when it comes to moving a signal through the box.
I think solid state is more susceptible to coloring versus tubes. Tubes color sound as well.
It's all about marketing different ways to color Music. This isn't necessarily bad but it's never really talked about this way.
- ...
- 111 posts total
knotscott353 posts
Bingo....the true meaning of "Hi-fi" refers to the original sound as recorded. Everything downstream of that is variation of some sort .... we just get to decide if it's a more pleasant variation or a less pleasant variation, and choose accordingly, but it remains a variation. In that sense, the best systems simply reveal with as little coloration as possible, |
Maybe… but if one listens at a low volume, then the attenuator also has a rising output impedance, so the cables start to affect it more and more as the volume goes down. But they seem good in theory if one doesn’t scratch the surface. And then if one has an RCA DAC and an XLR amp, there needs to be something in between. Or visa versa. |
- 111 posts total