Hi All, first post on here.
At the moment I have my outputs on my computer sound card connected straight to my power amp. I've had that for a few years and it's ok.
Problems I have is firstly I'd like a remote control for adjusting the volume. Having to go to the computer to shift the volume up or down is a bit of a drag.
Second issue is that I believe my sound quality is lacking when the signal is supplied directly from the computer sound card. It feels (sounds) like at lower volumes there isn't enough of a signal for the amp and speakers to be able to fully reproduce whatever is being sent. You can turn it up and performance starts to improve but you get to a point where the overall volume is too loud for comfortable listening even if you are starting to hear better range.
So I've come to the conclusion that I want a pre-amp. I'm imagining that the pre-amp is going to increase a weak source (aren't they all weak until they get to the amp?) and give it some body before transmitting it on to the power amp.
I looked at Naim NAC range of pre-amps but was put off by two things... firstly lots of comments characterising NAIM amps as 'clinical'. That's not really the sort of sound I'm looking for. NAIM don't do tone controls either... so what if your setup doesn't sound right.. you have no way to improve things and that worries me. NAIM probably thought all your components would be NAIM so why would anything have to be adjusted. They also don't have a power supply so you have to buy that separately as an addition.
Another amp I briefly looked at was the NAD 320BEE. I liked the fact that despite it being an 'integrated amp' it did have a 'pre-out' so you can bypass the internal power amp and use only the pre-amp features. I searched for a review and that brought me here. All was going well with the review until the part where someone suggested testing the amp in bypass mode. At that point it was discovered that the pre-amp part of this amplifier is a huge pile of steaming excrement. It was mentioned that many owners were using their NAD 320BEE as a power-amp (you can bypass in either direction so you use either the power or pre-amp part in isolation) and that it was preferential. Given I've no issues with my power amp that rules out the NAD 320BEE.
So I'm open to ideas. My favourite kind of HiFi high quality stuff which is cheap because it's old. I like NAIM and LINN... but open minded.
At the moment I have my outputs on my computer sound card connected straight to my power amp. I've had that for a few years and it's ok.
Problems I have is firstly I'd like a remote control for adjusting the volume. Having to go to the computer to shift the volume up or down is a bit of a drag.
Second issue is that I believe my sound quality is lacking when the signal is supplied directly from the computer sound card. It feels (sounds) like at lower volumes there isn't enough of a signal for the amp and speakers to be able to fully reproduce whatever is being sent. You can turn it up and performance starts to improve but you get to a point where the overall volume is too loud for comfortable listening even if you are starting to hear better range.
So I've come to the conclusion that I want a pre-amp. I'm imagining that the pre-amp is going to increase a weak source (aren't they all weak until they get to the amp?) and give it some body before transmitting it on to the power amp.
I looked at Naim NAC range of pre-amps but was put off by two things... firstly lots of comments characterising NAIM amps as 'clinical'. That's not really the sort of sound I'm looking for. NAIM don't do tone controls either... so what if your setup doesn't sound right.. you have no way to improve things and that worries me. NAIM probably thought all your components would be NAIM so why would anything have to be adjusted. They also don't have a power supply so you have to buy that separately as an addition.
Another amp I briefly looked at was the NAD 320BEE. I liked the fact that despite it being an 'integrated amp' it did have a 'pre-out' so you can bypass the internal power amp and use only the pre-amp features. I searched for a review and that brought me here. All was going well with the review until the part where someone suggested testing the amp in bypass mode. At that point it was discovered that the pre-amp part of this amplifier is a huge pile of steaming excrement. It was mentioned that many owners were using their NAD 320BEE as a power-amp (you can bypass in either direction so you use either the power or pre-amp part in isolation) and that it was preferential. Given I've no issues with my power amp that rules out the NAD 320BEE.
So I'm open to ideas. My favourite kind of HiFi high quality stuff which is cheap because it's old. I like NAIM and LINN... but open minded.
