Do I need a preamp?

[dshreter]

I'm with you on this, I use my Naim power amp with a direct 'line level' and volume controlled feed from an RME ADI-2 fs DAC. Despite other Naim owners ranting on about it needs 'the other half of the amp' to make it complete, i.e. the 'pre amp' I can see no reason why it should be necessary as I strongly suspect that the DAC is perfectly capable of driving the power amp to full power.

Quite what magic the matching Naim pre-amp is supposed to confer on matters is a mystery to me, unless it is designed to colour the sound.

Perhaps someone else knows better?

Yeah, when you look at the obscenely high prices for Naim preamps it really is shocking. The only thing my old NAC 152XS ever did for me was cause channel mismatch at low volumes.

 

[theREALdotnet]

Every now and then some of my friends insist that I should use the preamp but I absolutely don't understand what advantage I could have.

Plug some cables into the preamp and turn it on, to give your friends the illusion that it is now in the signal path. See whether they can hear any improvement

 

[Esprit]

Yes...what is the purpose of the pre-amp if you can't connect directly to a power amp (if that's an option)?

As I wrote from the beginning, the Bryston collects dust because the DAC is connected directly to the active monitors.

 

[Chrispy]

As I wrote from the beginning, the Bryston collects dust because the DAC is connected directly to the active monitors.

A pre-amp may provide a needed signal boost or act as a multi-source switch, or may be superfluous. If your dac suffices for input sources to your monitors....why worry about it? Or am I misunderstanding something?