Hi guys,
New here, as registered, but I am reading (and appreciating) since a long time the measurements, reviews and comments here.
To introduce myself, I live in France and got interested in hifi since some 18 years now. I made a parenthesis in my interest in audio the last six years to support my son (very) costly sport, motocross.
He stopped now, and I am taking advantage of that fact that his little sister is not yet too advanced in horse riding to come back to MY audio gear… before getting completely ruined.
I have preamp issues/questions. I know this has been addressed many times, through different angles. I red some, but surely not all of them posts. Sorry if it’s a bit redundant.
May be I can describe my set up:
My sources are both a streamer (moon MIND 180) and a turntable (technics SL1200 GR).
My amps are a Mcintosh 275 CE and some (British) clones FirstWatt F5 monos.
My speakers are JBL 4425 with crossovers redone all in Mundorff components. (Awaiting radian aluminium diaphragms)
In the middle of this there was two Bryston components, the BDA2 DAC, and the BP17 preamp with phono option.
I became very disappointed with the DAC, and now with the preamp. I don’t insist too much on this because there might be Bryston lovers here I don’t want to hurt.
Suffice to say that:
1 I bought recently a Denafrips Pontus 2 and I am very pleased by it. (BDA2 is sold, and BP17 for sale)
2 I tried yesterday to plug the Denafrips directly to the F5, using the mini DSP nano Digi as volume control (no DSP). This mini DSP thingy is only digital so inserted between the streamer and the DAC, hence there is only one conversion. True, there is an oversampling from the mini DSP. It was so much better than with the BP17: stronger bass, sweeter highs, and much more transparency over the bandwidth…
So here are my questions:
What is the difference between a passive preamp (say like the Kozmo thing), and an “active” preamp with a gain of 1 (like the Denafrips Athena)? Is it just two different ways to obtain attenuation?
Thanks,
David
New here, as registered, but I am reading (and appreciating) since a long time the measurements, reviews and comments here.
To introduce myself, I live in France and got interested in hifi since some 18 years now. I made a parenthesis in my interest in audio the last six years to support my son (very) costly sport, motocross.
He stopped now, and I am taking advantage of that fact that his little sister is not yet too advanced in horse riding to come back to MY audio gear… before getting completely ruined.
I have preamp issues/questions. I know this has been addressed many times, through different angles. I red some, but surely not all of them posts. Sorry if it’s a bit redundant.
May be I can describe my set up:
My sources are both a streamer (moon MIND 180) and a turntable (technics SL1200 GR).
My amps are a Mcintosh 275 CE and some (British) clones FirstWatt F5 monos.
My speakers are JBL 4425 with crossovers redone all in Mundorff components. (Awaiting radian aluminium diaphragms)
In the middle of this there was two Bryston components, the BDA2 DAC, and the BP17 preamp with phono option.
I became very disappointed with the DAC, and now with the preamp. I don’t insist too much on this because there might be Bryston lovers here I don’t want to hurt.
Suffice to say that:
1 I bought recently a Denafrips Pontus 2 and I am very pleased by it. (BDA2 is sold, and BP17 for sale)
2 I tried yesterday to plug the Denafrips directly to the F5, using the mini DSP nano Digi as volume control (no DSP). This mini DSP thingy is only digital so inserted between the streamer and the DAC, hence there is only one conversion. True, there is an oversampling from the mini DSP. It was so much better than with the BP17: stronger bass, sweeter highs, and much more transparency over the bandwidth…
So here are my questions:
What is the difference between a passive preamp (say like the Kozmo thing), and an “active” preamp with a gain of 1 (like the Denafrips Athena)? Is it just two different ways to obtain attenuation?
Thanks,
David
