Home Amp/Preamp Asylum

Looking for a new Amp or Preamp? If you're after tubes, post over here.

[ Follow Ups ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ Amp/Preamp Asylum ]
[ Alert Moderator ]

Nobody really knows the answer to the question "Why?"

It's like asking why different cables sound different. As far as standard electrical theory goes, they should all sound the same. But they don't. So people come up with hand-waving explanations that may or may not have anything to do with reality.

It's the same with active preamps. I can't really offer any a priori reasons why they should sound better. But they do. So one can make hand-waving explanations based in 20-20 hindsight. I can make some of those too, but I have no idea if they are correct. I'd rather not bother making handwaving explanations. The bottom line is that a *good* active preamp simply sounds better.

As far as your listening experience goes, you are about 10 years behind the times. Wadia was able to set up a strong dealer network in the '90s simply because of the phenomenon you described. They would go to a dealer, ask to hear their best system, and then replace the source and preamp with a Wadia. The Wadia would typically "blow away" the dealer's existing front end, largely because most solid-state preamps of that era had a lot of sonic problems (even many of the expensive ones).

But I can pretty much guarantee you that if you put a (in no particular order):

Audio Research Ref 3
VTL 7.5
Ayre K-1xe
CAT SL-1 Ultimate Mk II

in your system that the overall sound would improve significantly from what you now have. (And a manufacturer of variable output CD players would have a pretty tough time selling them to a dealer that carried one of the above preamps.)

As an aside, I would also bet that if you could repeat your comparison of the original Rowland Coherence One against the First Sound passive that you would find some areas where the Rowland was better. I'm sure that the First Sound was more open and transparent, which may have suited your system at the time, so I'm not surprised that you preferred it. The best of today's active preamps allow you to have your cake and eat it too.

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Kimber Kable  

Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups
You can not post to an archived thread.

[ Top Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]