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Preamp with nice volume knob for Hifi & Multichannel Purifi Setup

likesBass

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Nov 23, 2022
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Hey all,

At the moment I have a Denon X3700 as Preamp, which for the long time fed a Yamaha MX-1 with Dynaudio Evoke 50s, recently joined by the Evoke Center and the Dynaudio Sub 6.

Long time lurking and reading led me to upgrade the MX-1 to a Boxem Arthur 4215/E2 which arrived today and is a serious upgrade, even with room correction and sub disabled it sounds a lot better than before which i really did not expect, i was mostly looking for a smaller box that I did not have to turn on and off.

Now like to seperate the Hif and Home cinema usage mostly because I hate the volume control, I had a Yamaha AVR which had a volume knob where you could hear the motor when it is quiet and i really really miss this the accelerating DB meter volume control on the Denon doesn't feel satisfying

I wouldn't mind having streaming included, currently using Apple Music as that is my main source for music, but I am also open to multiple seperates that i can hide in a cubboard.

Budget is open, but if it ends up between 3-5000€ i will start thinking about High end Audio processors like Trinnov/Lyngdorf so between 1-3k would be best

Really looking forward to your ideas :)

Location is Germany, if anyone also knows where I can buy good big rugs I would be most grateful, thats the biggest piece of room treatment still open
 

phoenixdogfan

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Several ideas. If it's for Stereo HiFi, the Mini DSP Flex and Shd are very good and include Dirac Live (on the Flex, it's a $200 option), plus digital crossover for subs and PEQ, and the SHD provides for Volumio streaming. If you don't need the added PEQ and DSP of the minis, then any two channel DAC with a volume control would allow you to separate esp if the Denon has a 2 channel direct out/home theater bypass. Streaming options could include a Raspberry Pi with a Pi Hat+volume control.

Almost all this stuff is way less than $3-5K Euros. The miniDSP Shd is probably l.t. $1500 Euros, it's around $1250 in the US, but don't know what you'd pay in Europe with tariffs, import duties and VAT. That's probably the most expensive recommendation I'd make. It should provide more than sufficient gain to drive the Purifi to clipping. BTW, I own a Purifi, assembled it myself. Boxem is considered a great choice, justifiably so.
 
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likesBass

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Several ideas. If it's for Stereo HiFi, the Mini DSP Flex and Shd are very good and include Dirac Live (on the Flex, it's a $200 option), plus digital crossover for subs and PEQ, and the SHD provides for Volumio streaming. If you don't need the added PEQ and DSP of the minis, then any two channel DAC with a volume control would allow you to separate esp if the Denon has a 2 channel direct out/home theater bypass. Streaming options could include a Raspberry Pi with a Pi Hat+volume control.

Almost all this stuff is way less than $3-5K Euros. The miniDSP Shd is probably l.t. $1500 Euros, it's around $1250 in the US, but don't know what you'd pay in Europe with tariffs, import duties and VAT. That's probably the most expensive recommendation I'd make. It should provide more than sufficient gain to drive the Purifi to clipping. BTW, I own a Purifi, assembled it myself. Boxem is considered a great choice, justifiably so.
Yes the Minidsp shd is something I also considered, don’t really think the volume control there satisfys me and also read about some of the problems in the thread, so not completely convinced on it.

For the pi solution I don’t have the time, would probably rather buy the wiim

No clipping near, moved into a flat and don’t want the whole house to shake , even though I can crank it up easily with the big concrete floor and walls
 

aedagnino

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You could change the SHD's knob if you wanted I guess... It should be removable, that way you could just put in a third party knob of your choice.
 

groovybassist

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I don’t play in the multi-channel space, so don’t have any advice there. Congrats on the Arthur 4215 though - great amp. I’ve had mine for a couple of weeks now and it’s getting a lot of play time.
 
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