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In Reply to: Are active preamps a pointless appendage of a bygone age? posted by L.D. on April 9, 2006 at 10:48:57:
I was just thinking about what the audio setup actually looks like when a passive preamp is inserted into a system. If you think about it the attenuation is occurring AFTER the signal has been output from the cd player, DAC, or whatever. So that signal is attenuated, which apparently robs some dynamics and tone color (ie. very low level signals) from the sound.Now look at how a typical active works. The incoming signal is attenuated and then that reduced signal is re-amplified. So the output to the amplifier does not have any additional resistors in the way (with the exception of the interconnect cable) attenuating the sound.
If the sound from a device is to a large degree dictated by what that last thing the signal passes through then for most actives its, well, an active component providing voltage and current drive and from a passive device it is a subtractive device, either a resistor or stepdown transformer.
The question I have for a manufacturer like Charles Hansen is this:
If you move the location of the volume control in your preamp from the input to the output, what effect does this have on the sound quality of your preamp? Putting the volume control last is essentially like making it a passive preamp and putting it on the front end is the normal way to do an active.
I am sure that most DACs with variable output volume run the signal through an attenuator at the end just before the output jack. What if instead they attenuated the signal just after the I/V conversion and then made the output stage/filter with more gain and beefy power supply? Then the configuration would much more closely resemble a high end preamplifier and not a passive attenuator.
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Follow Ups
- New thought on the matter (Charles Hansen please read). - morricab 04/13/0602:12:13 04/13/06 (1)
- Re: New thought on the matter (Charles Hansen please read). - Charles Hansen 08:27:28 04/13/06 (0)
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