Why have a pre?

[brigrizzme]

There are many preamplifiers out there. Why purchase one, if you have a nice enough amp? Buy a volume control or a passive pre and save $. Or, invest in a Vintage McIntosh amp.

Just my opinion.
I must be wrong. Yes, I must.

[poneal]

It is true that you can directly connect say your DVD player to an amp for playback. The purpose of a preprocessor is to allow you to connect multiple types of equipment for use as a switching device. (CD, DVD, TUNER, SAT, TAPE, etc.). Otherwise each time you wanted to switch a piece of gear you would have to unplug the current device and then connect the new device to your amp. Preprocessors also have added features such as pre-amplification (getting the signal up to a set standard), tone controls, matrix decoding of surround encoded materials, video up/down conversion, etc. That is why the receiver is so popular. It combines the amp/preprocessor/tuner together into one unit. The motivational drive to buy separates is that if one component breaks or you want a later version then you just replace that one piece. Amps can last for many decades, so many people buy a good quality amp then just replace the other pieces of the system. Hope this helps.

[92135011]

Some people also report that their preamps improves the sound a bit.
Im not sure in what field and how, but it does happen.

[E-Stat]

There are many preamplifiers out there. Why purchase one, if you have a nice enough amp? Buy a volume control or a passive pre and save $.

There are a number of matching issues. Passives are far more cable sensitive and require low capacitance runs which is difficult with long interconnects. If not, there can be a noticeable high end rolloff. Gain (as in having enough) is another potential issue. Naturally, if you have a phono source then you need both the phono EQ and a bunch of gain.

Having said that, I use passives on my two audio systems and use a preamp in one only for the phono source. I use short and very low cap cables. On the garage system, I cannot fully drive the power amp with the CDP. I don't consider that a problem because it plays loudly enough. That would not do, however, for my main system.

I find them to be of great benefit when the system is properly matched.

rw

[Geoffcin]

There are many preamplifiers out there. Why purchase one, if you have a nice enough amp? Buy a volume control or a passive pre and save $. Or, invest in a Vintage McIntosh amp.

Just my opinion.
I must be wrong. Yes, I must.

While I'm a purist at heart, a powered preamp is sometime required, as all of your sources may not have the required gain. A pre that allows you to switch from powered to passive is a good choice.