James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
74
This is what I would view as incorrect, or not telling the whole story, or however one would want to characterize something that doesn’t leave you with the whole truth.
Bingo. Sources may or may not be a good match for either a pre- or power-amp, and preamps may or may not be a good match for power amps. I have sources that sound great through one pre- and not another, where other sources sound better through the other pre-. Similarly some amps sound better with one pre- than another. It’s about finding good matches. It’s not about a rule regarding noise being added or not added.
Hi, so my question is , why do sound engineers use a mixing board? They may not be able to improve the signal but they can change the sound. Haven’t even mentioned compression and reverb, etc in this thread.
So far, nobody’s mentioned the quality of power feeding the preamp as making a difference (maybe even the main difference) to the sound (i.e. for example Naim and their separate power supplies for their preamps, or even a good LPS on a DAC when going direct).
But that’s snake oil, I will be told, because I have no access to the hydro turbines at the dam where the electricity is created, so why bother with dealing with it at the hifi stage as it won’t make any difference….
I think the point is that some DACs start clipping before max gain - that gives the standard 2V output at 0dBFS - so they have the least distortion with a lower gain - that gives say 500mV at 0dBFS. That’s probably about 12dB short of max power amp’s amplification.
Maybe the real problem here is that it has become difficult for a lot of people (perhaps including the OP) to find a dealer who is willing to provide equipment for a home trial. Here in the UK, this is not such a problem. For many years, I haven’t bought anything without trying it at home first, and, if you can do it, this is what I’d always recommend.
If you rely on a forum like this for advice, you’ll get a lot of responses based on personal experience ( I tried so and so and the difference was “night and day”) and a fair smattering of “scientific” advice telling you that the experienced differences are illusory (while claiming some sort of infallibility for measurements).
I have no axe to grind on whether adding a pre-amp can technically “improve” sound, but I do think it can (and often will) change it. And you may (or may not) like the change, and not really care whether it is technically an improvement or degradation of the signal. After all, can anyone argue that vinyl can technically improve a digital recording? Still countless hi-fi buffs prefer vinyl (I’m not one of them, by the way).
If you can try a pre-amp to gauge its effects, do it. Otherwise, good luck on being guided by a forum like this.
There’s no disputing improved power supplies can make a difference. A thoroughly well-designed piece of kit should be immune to mains interference, however.
Some manufacturers even publish specifications in this regard::
I’m a little cynical where it comes to Naim - “We didn’t design the component to be immune to mains variation, and we built a sort of Okay-ish power supply for it. If you want to extract the best performance, you need to pay us a lot of extra cash for the really good power supply”
No criticism of you, @Charles_Peterson - I just think Naim is milking it. For the cost of their kit, immunity to mains effects should be inherent.
Well, I still use, and swear by, the Naim DAC V1 that I’ve had since 2017. It has a built in pre-amp, though digital inputs only. In the Naim world it is somewhat looked down upon (ok, the preamp section mostly) but I’ve always found it exactly enough and love the form factor. Having heard a friend’s $150K Naim/Kudos/Audience setup, I would say about 130K of that is a diminishing return (ok, at least for a broke ass freelance photographer like myself it would be).
In the end, it comes down to the market, and it’s always seemed to work for them. And similar to Leica, I love the fact that their gear has a very long life and can be mixed and matched with old and new (like my V1 into a 1976 NAP 160 I picked up for $450). I also think total immunity from the mains is somewhat aspirational at a certain level of gear unless one runs off batteries (which comes with its own issues). Naim are a bit less immune than others due to certain design parameters that give their gear a very forward sound, but that’s generally what’s known as their classic line. The newer lines don’t have the need for separate power supplies (though it was always an upgrade, not a necessity - one could always power the pre via the amp (except for really old gear like my 160).
I did, in a fit of weakness, once buy a fancy mid-range Shunyata power cable for the V1, which transformed the sound - in a really bad, repeatable way. It was back to the stock cable 'Tibia" cable that it comes with for me. I had to get a new power cable with special connector for the 160 and went for a more reasonably priced Sean Jacobs Powerblack, and again, that transformed the sound - much better than the old skinny 18ga cable it came with that was hanging on by a small tin connection.
So power is all kinds of a crap shoot, which is why one needs to experiment wisely, pick items with a return policy or are easily resalable, and buy only at ‘Succession’ levels if one can truly afford it and those extra zeros may as well be petty cash to you.
I thought it was night and day soundstage improvement…
Two different things here. Active device, sure, will modify the signal in some way. It will also, pretty much by definition of analog, add some noise and distortion. Which isn’t to say that one does not need a pre-amp, just that if there were no drums (or soundstage, or whatever) in the signal originally, pre ain’t adding them in.
Maybe I am lucky to have never had components so widely out of standard spec on impedance, but with different pres (and power amps), including McIntoshes, Brystons, Pass, Electrocompaniet, and some I forgot by now, there were differences, but there never were “gosh, I though it was chamber music, and it’s actually a live rock concert!” I very much doubt that “missing drums”: would be the effect of even the wildest impedance mismatch either.
On a slightly different note, I installed a Chord Qutest with my Naim NDX2 Streamer/DAC basically bypassing the internal DAC and the Qutest opened up a 3D sound stage I never knew existed. Needless to say, the NDX2 is now for sale…
@Graeme_Finlayson, a few people including myself have mentioned this already but you haven’t yet even acknowledged the question surrounding the trust that you would need to put in the software. I’d like to directly ask you to respond with how comfortable you are running your system without a conventional pre-amp and how do you eliminate the risk of turning it on one day at full output levels? This could be due to human error or perhaps even a bug in the code. I know that is not something that I am prepared to do and others have suggested the same. What say you on that perspective?
I have had a digital all in one for over 3 years and it has never done that. There is always the possibility I guess but I had an analogue pre previously and the amount of times I switched from phono to CD and forgot about the gain difference which made me jump a bit, in fact I still do it now in my second system.
Having had multi pre and mono amps and now simplifying my system I still stand by that DIRAC has made the biggest difference for the better.
Roon sent my Naim to full volume many times and this is a Roon Ready combi amp. Roon doesn’t respect volume settings set outside of the app so volume limits are no good here if it’s set high from elsewhere Roon just outputs at it. Also had a bug in Roonwhere it did continue to raise volume to full. max volume in Roon helped here but it did it before this was released to. If it’s a Roon Ready pre you’re always going to be at Roons volume control.
Can you still set volume limits when using Roons DSP volume if so you can set it to not go to full.
As for a pre I would not be without one, I use the Hifi for more than Roon and have analogue and digital sources.
This isn’t about a small difference in volume when switching between sources, this is about the possibility of starting some music at 100% volume. This is a very real risk which can and does happen, a quick search of this community will result in multiple instances being reported, here is one such example Volume suddenly jumps to 100% on its own [Ticket In]
I’ve not had an issue with this to date - my office/workshop system has operated with Roon controlling the volume for ages. Even though I have an integrated amp in there, it’s more convenient to control via Roon than get to the amp to turn it up or down with the volume knob.
You can also set a volume limit in Roon, which is a sensible precaution. Pick a level a little louder than your maximum listening level and set the limit there. No chance of frying anything.
If I’m understanding correctly, you have a streamer, which is your single source for a DAC, which is your single source for an integrated amp. A preamp would be a complete waste of money. If you’re worried about the digital volume control just use the volume control on your integrated, it must have one. Or do you mean something different by “stand alone amp”? If you wanted to get tweaky about it you could get a passive stepped attenuator and put it between your DAC and “stand alone amplifier” (which could be a “basic” or “power” amplifier as well).
If your system has enough bits to “throw away”, so that at maximum attenuation needed you still have enough for the highest resolution source that you have, you really don’t need to worry about digital volume, the result will (or should be) a bit perfect stream of your source. Being an OCD audiophile, I tend to avoid digital volume control reflexively in any case.
Not exactly true if your device can be controlled from other apps or its own volume control on the preamp of the DAC. Roons volume limits only come into affect if adjusting volume via the Roon app itself not from outside influence. If the volume was adjusted outside to max Roon wlll play it at max it doesn’t attenuate it down to the limits. That only stops you adjusting above them in Roon itself. If it’s fixed line level output and Roons DSP is being used to attenuate then you should be safe but never say never, Roons code is not the most bug free.
Is anyone going DAC direct to amp incorporating sub woofers? I know you can use speaker wire going from amp to Sub to Speaker but then AFAIK you can’t run your speakers full range, i.e. the subs low pass filter at around 80hz. Some preamps do a good job of handling this as well as any signal differences (volume/voltage) between RCA and Balanced.
