These days, a preamp should include:
- DAC functionality
- Stereo Sub out
- Room correction ability
- *Maybe* also streaming service functionality
I used to have a Benchmark DAC2HGC, which is basically a DAC-Preamp... but without sub support. Too limited, IMO. I sold it a few months ago, finally.
Other than that, I have always owned integrated amps.
It may need those things
in addition to a volume control, tone controls, and input selection.
I feel a rant coming on.
It's kind of strange to me the vicissitudes of what people insist must be integrated versus what must be separate (of course I'm not targeting your post that I quoted, Pablolie, but making a more general statement). We used to have separate preamps and power amps for a simple reason: Amps were subject to flaming out, and also subject to wanting frequent hobbyist upgrades, while a good preamp just does what it does. Kenwood called their preamps "control amplifiers" which makes a lot of sense. A person would own a preamp for decades while changing out amps every time the previous one released its magic smoke. That happened to me twice with the Spectro Acoustics amp I used to own--the Onkyo preamp was still just fine but amps came and went. But nobody doubted that the preamp should provide everything needed to connect the source devices to the amplifier, including a phono section, a couple of tape loops (with dubbing capability), a tuner input, an auxiliary input for whatever (which became the CD player input), maybe a processor loop for those relative few who might want to use an equalizer, and
tone controls or filters of various sorts. In those days, there was no assumption of equalization (I used it, but most of my friends did not), but there were other kinds of processors, too, and the processor loop kept the preamp from being made into landfill waste by the owner's changing interests.
For those who weren't likely to blow up their amps frequently, there were integrated amps and receivers.
Even now, one of the key features of an AVR for enthusiasts is having preamp outputs, so that the enthusiast can use separate power amplifiers.
Then came the whole shibboleth of all that circuitry undermining the sound, so enthusiasts then eschewed all the tone controls and processor loops. Recordable CD's ended the career of open-reel tape decks, and cars with built-in CD players ended the careers of cassette decks. Phono sections were abandoned, but enthusiasts still wanted their turntables, so they started buying them separately anyway. And those who sold them successfully sold the story that the one in the receiver, preamp, or integrated amp wasn't any good anyway. Preamps suddenly had a lot less to do--provide line amplification for a CD player and not much else.
Then sub-and-satellite speaker systems came along (Bose started that trend) and people about the same time wanted their movie-watching integrated with their sound system. AVR's appeared, first as audio preamps with limited video switching, and then ultimately as video-optimized systems with limited additional inputs for audio sources. This was a big mistake, in my view, simply because the video standards were changing faster than the big parts of the hardware, and a lot of good hardware is now in the landfill because it didn't have, say, HDMI inputs or switching.
AV processors now have all sorts of software integration. My buddy down in Texas bought a Denon 4800 AVR, but I sure hope the software can keep up with changing standards because it's pretty darn expensive for it to need replacement just because it doesn't support the latest Blu-Ray or streaming standard.
For those who kept their audio systems as audio only, the ideal system became a row of relatively small boxes, often sitting on the floor or on a metal rack with spikes punching holes in the floor. There's the phono section, a passive volume knob, a streamer, a DAC, and a power amplifier. Sometimes a computer in lieu of the streamer, and sometimes a processor tied to the passive volume knob that provides equalization for as many channels as the enthusiast could desire.
Now, we are seeing things becoming integrated again, perhaps. But the ability to switch inputs is still limited--this device only switches digital inputs, that one has one pair of RCA plugs and three digital inputs, the other has two pairs of RCA plugs, perhaps. My systems need preamps because I have more sources than what modern equipment designers think I need, as if they own my needs.
But it seems to me that we still have a fragmented market. My system downstairs is for watching whatever an Apple TV box can bring into the system that I'm willing to subscribe to (which isn't much). I have podcasts, YouTube, Amazon music, and the ability to mirror my iPhone. I also have a cheapie Blu-Ray player (for which I paid all of $12 on the bargain table at Best Buy). (I've had to replace expensive Blu-Ray players because new Blu-Rays required newer playback software than the old units would support, so now I only buy cheap players.) To make that work, the Apple TV box's HDMI output goes to the TV, which sends optical audio to a Topping DAC. The Blu-Ray player plugs into the TV, and the TV is used for source switching. That's fine for video, but it's suboptimal for audio. That's also fine, because it's
good enough. Because I don't trust the DAC's volume control, and because I decided to throw a CD player into the system, and maybe even a turntable, it's becoming an increasingly audio system. So, it now has my old B&K preamp and power amp driving old Advents. But there's no equalization, and the only way I can add that is by plugging something in somewhere--another box. Sure, there are ways to program some device or other to make it all work seamlessly together, supposedly, but I really think that is only true when the system has only
one source.
I have three old AVR's up in the attic that tell the history of our TV-watching system--a Sony 5.2 system with 480p/NTSC video switching, a Kenwood 7.2 system with HD TV using component video, an Onkyo system that provided a way to switch HDMI, and now a Yamaha system that provides much better HDMI switching.
The computer world had this right for a long time--when interface standards changed, you bought a new plug-in card to keep up with it. But computers are getting thrown away long before they wear out because software companies insist on giving us features we didn't ask for.
So, back to integration and to the point of this uncontrolled ramble. The boundaries between functions of a music playback system seem to me to have become so arbitrary and capricious that it amazes me that anyone would think someone else foolish for having a system that drew the boundary in a different spot. But, for the life of me, I can't imagine why expensive amplification could be made obsolete by changes in software--that's one boundary that seems to me to really make sense.
Rick "uses preamps precisely because all of his systems have
more than one analog source" Denney
- when I like something, I tend to keep it a long time. 
