What makes a preamp "better"?

I have a friend the tunes guitars for rock groups and he says the preamp can really color the sound that comes thru it. He liked the sound of my Naim gear the one time he was over for a beer. I do know that the 52 and 252 are built differently than the lesser models in that they split the stereo signal for each channel early on thus giving each signal better electronics to flow thru. That is certainly one reason they are so expensive, at least the way I understand it. The others just bundle the whole signal thru at one time and split it at the end so duplicate electronics are not needed and the human labor not as intense. I'm sure there are better qualified people to answer your question. Lets hear it techno geeks.

Life is analogue

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Life is analogue

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From infancy we make sense of the outside world through binary opposites; infants usuall learn to say no before yes. Our system of evaluating what occurs around us develops through the process of negation. Thus life is a series of ones and noughts.

From an early age we learn that a cat is a cat and not a dog.

Life is digital.

Conflict arises as a result of polarised viewpoints.

An active preamp conditions the signal so that the power amp hits the ground running.

Better preamps condition the signal more accurately.

An 82 is an 82 because it isn't a 102.

Left and right channels are in themselves binary opposites and from these we can form the illusion as to what is in the middle.



Regards,

Steve.

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Conflict arises as a result of polarised viewpoints.

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Some conflicts do; such conflicts are generally directed toward mutual annihilation, in accordance with the nature of polar opposites. Other conflicts result from greed. These conflicts are ultimately a more winnable kind (by one or the other side), since wealth can always be redistributed.

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From infancy we make sense of the outside world through binary opposites; infants usuall learn to say no before yes. Our system of evaluating what occurs around us develops through the process of negation. Thus life is a series of ones and noughts.

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I think it's more accurate to say our perceptions of life are arrived at through a series of ones and noughts. Just because we use a series of yes/no queries to discern that a cat is a cat and not a dog, the fact remains that neither is a muskrat or a paramecium or a kumquat. A binary process helps us solve problems, but any binary system falls well short of accurately representing our world.

I, umm, have nothing to add about preamps. Sorry. Carry on.

Regards,

jay

A better sound.

Arye

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Originally posted by Steven Toy:

From an early age we learn that a cat is a cat and not a dog.

An 82 is an 82 because it isn't a 102.

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I see. So :

As a tree is not a dog, it must be a cat.

As an 82 is an 82 because it isn't a 102, then anything that isn't a 102 must be an 82, so a tree must be an 82.

Here we have "Toy's tree/cat/82 conundrum", which states that a tree is both a cat AND an 82.

This goes some way to explain the somewhat feline quality of said preamp.

Very interesting ..

Due to the fact that he doesn't know what he's talking about (no matter what the subject is) it's usually best to disregard Toy Talk.

I'd like to hear more about the original subject matter; it's far from exhausted. Any nerds around willing to shed some light on the preamp problem?

Herman

It's very simply a case of introducing the least amount of errors to the signals being handled.

This means not just the internal workings of the preamp, but having to take account of the sources connected and the amplifiers being driven - in fact everything connected to the preamp has an effect.

Andy.

The difference between for example, an 82 and a 52 is that yes, the signal is split but a bit more than that. The 82 basically has all the components on one printed circuit board. The 52 has two quite separate boards with special suspension etc. So, the 52 is kind of like 2 separate 82's........
That's why it sounds better.
So, the 52 should command a price of roughly twice that of an 82 :-)

Computers are supposed to work on 1's and 0's - in other words "Yes" or "No" - why does mine frequently say "Maybe"?......

Herm - I thought the "Toy Story" was a pretty good on-subject metaphorical reply myself.

A man of authority

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Due to the fact that he doesn't know what he's talking about (no matter what the subject is) it's usually best to disregard Toy Talk.

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Still running an imbalanced hi-fi then I see



Regards,

Steve.

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As a tree is not a dog, it must be a cat.

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More like: As a tree is not a dog, and not a cat it must be a tree.



Regards,

Steve.

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Originally posted by Steven Toy:
More like: As a tree is not a dog, and not a cat it must be a tree.

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But that isn't any longer a binary opposition.

Besides which binary != digital anyway, there's plenty of analogue technologies of all kinds which are binary.

-- Ian

Not a dog -0, not a cat -0, a tree -1.



Regards,

Steve.

Steven, I'm not going to argue with you about Boolean algebra, since this has nothing to do with preamps, but trust me, you don't understand binary if you think neither a dog nor a cat therefore a tree is a binary opposition.

-- Ian

Preamps are a mystery to me as well.

Stuff like, "Should change the signal the least" make sense, but fail to explain the observation that a good preamp is *better* than no preamp at all.

After all, running a CD player directly into an amp *must* change the signal less than running it through *anything* - yes? But the end result isn't as good.

What gives? What does, "Conditioning the signal for the amp" mean?

- GregB

Insert Witty Signature Line Here

The only difference is price.

If you run a CDP output directly into a power amp it will be very very loud. If you place an attenuator inline then you no longer have a direct connection, you have a compromise.

OTOH I don't see any good reason why preamps need be expensive compared to CDPs or power amps.

Paul

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if you think neither a dog nor a cat therefore a tree is a binary opposition.

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I don't think neither ... nor ... therefore is a binary opposite. Simply having negated the definition of an object further negations may follow before the infant arrives at the correct answer.

Things are defined by what they are not rather than by what they are.

A 282 is not an 82 nor is it a 102. It is not a 250 either.

The existance of the 282 would carry less significance here without the existance of the other preamps that are negated in identifying the preamp as being the 282.



Regards,

Steve.

"I don't see any good reason why preamps need be expensive compared to CDPs or power amps."

Three questions.

Have you seen how busy a nac 552 is inside?

Have you heard how much better it is compared to a nac 52?

Do you believe naim add extra components/suspension systems etc etc into the 552 just for the fun of it whilst knowing they make no contribution to performance?

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Things are defined by what they are not rather than by what they are.

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This might be plausible in a universe made up of a small number of kinds of objects (only cats, dogs, and trees, for example), but doesn't make much sense in the real universe, which includes many millions of discrete classes of things. You're surely not suggesting somebody learns what object A is by noting it is not one of millions of other things? That would be impossible, nobody would ever learn what anything is if they had to first compare it against everything else in the universe in order to understand what it isn't.

-- Ian

Following the "every preamp degrades the signal" theory:

No preamp better than 552, which is much, much better than 72, THEREFORE ->
Taking the 72/Hi out of a 72/Hi/140 amp would be very loud but *infinitely* better sounding than a 552/552PS/140?

Thomas

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This might be plausible in a universe made up of a small number of kinds of objects (only cats, dogs, and trees, for example), but doesn't make much sense in the real universe, which includes many millions of discrete classes of things.

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An infant's universe is very small and grows as s/he learns of the existance of more and more objects/concepts that are negated from that which is already known.

An 82 is a preamp. A 102 is preamp. But an 82 is not a 102...

You need a heck of a lot of 1s and 0s to reconstruct the whole universe.



Regards,

Steve.

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An infant's universe is very small and grows as s/he learns of the existance of more and more objects/concepts that are negated from that which is already known.

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So you do think we learn what object A is by comparing it to the members of the class of all objects we already know, and determining it isn't one of them? That's utterly impossible, as a minute's thought would show. Even a new-born infant's immediate universe contains many hundreds of discrete objects.

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An 82 is a preamp. A 102 is preamp. But an 82 is not a 102

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With respect, that tells us precisely nothing about a 102 or an 82, other than that they are both preamps. (And presumably you think we only worked out they were preamps in the first place because we compared them with every class of non-preamps objects we know of first, and decided they didn't fit. I could grow a long beard in the time it would take to determine that, frankly.)

-- Ian

Ignoring the subthread about whether or not things are what they are not, I suggest that a preamp is more than an attenuator.

Preamps include an attenuator (volume pot) but many other bits as well.

Would just the attenuator and source selector in a box sound better than a standard preamp?

These types of descriptions also leave out that preamps are active in some form, hence requiring power supplies.

- GregB

Insert Witty Signature Line Here

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Would just the attenuator and source selector in a box sound better than a standard preamp?

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Greg,

This has been hit on a few times here, with people pointing out that things like bandwidth limiting and resistance matching (between signal and amp) have important roles to play in the sonics. Of course no guarantee that what's claimed in these threads is correct.

 Things are defined by what they are not rather than by what they are.  

Steve,

This has been hit on here. Of course, no guarantee that what's claimed in this book is correct.

Eric

[This message was edited by ejl on THURSDAY 10 July 2003 at 19:19.]