new pre amp needed

Andrewjvt

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Looking at emotiva xsp-1 the best spec pre amp for the money imo at £1449 all included.

Dont know much about them so does anyone have any experience with emotiva?

Other pre amps im interested in hegel P 20 also true fully balanced and has other unbalanced pre outs.

Has anyone experienced emotiva products?
 
Andrewjvt said:
Looking at emotiva xsp-1 the best spec pre amp for the money imo at £1449 all included.

Dont know much about them so does anyone have any experience with emotiva?

Other pre amps im interested in hegel P 20 also true fully balanced and has other unbalanced pre outs.

Has anyone experienced emotiva products?

Not sure exactly what you are after as the P20 is a preamplifier and the XPS-1 is a phono preamp for a turntable is it not?

Or are you in market for both?
 

Andrewjvt

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Al ears said:
Andrewjvt said:
Looking at emotiva xsp-1 the best spec pre amp for the money imo at £1449 all included.

Dont know much about them so does anyone have any experience with emotiva?

Other pre amps im interested in hegel P 20 also true fully balanced and has other unbalanced pre outs.

Has anyone experienced emotiva products?

Not sure exactly what you are after as the P20 is a preamplifier and the XPS-1 is a phono preamp for a turntable is it not?

Or are you in market for both?

Ive got my letters mixed up

Its the xsp-1 stereo preamp
 
Andrewjvt said:
Al ears said:
Andrewjvt said:
Looking at emotiva xsp-1 the best spec pre amp for the money imo at £1449 all included.

Dont know much about them so does anyone have any experience with emotiva?

Other pre amps im interested in hegel P 20 also true fully balanced and has other unbalanced pre outs.

Has anyone experienced emotiva products?

Not sure exactly what you are after as the P20 is a preamplifier and the XPS-1 is a phono preamp for a turntable is it not?

Or are you in market for both?

Ive got my letters mixed up

Its the xsp-1 stereo preamp

Ah, right.... no experience with Emotiva I am afraid.
 

Andrewjvt

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Al ears said:
Andrewjvt said:
Al ears said:
Andrewjvt said:
Looking at emotiva xsp-1 the best spec pre amp for the money imo at £1449 all included.

Dont know much about them so does anyone have any experience with emotiva?

Other pre amps im interested in hegel P 20 also true fully balanced and has other unbalanced pre outs.

Has anyone experienced emotiva products?

Not sure exactly what you are after as the P20 is a preamplifier and the XPS-1 is a phono preamp for a turntable is it not?

Or are you in market for both?

Ive got my letters mixed up

Its the xsp-1 stereo preamp

Ah, right.... no experience with Emotiva I am afraid.

Me also but the specs look very good for the price. The cost would be much higher if they sold through dealerships also.

Hard to get real info on them though.
 

Gazzip

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Andrewjvt said:
Looking at emotiva xsp-1 the best spec pre amp for the money imo at £1449 all included.

Dont know much about them so does anyone have any experience with emotiva?

Other pre amps im interested in hegel P 20 also true fully balanced and has other unbalanced pre outs.

Has anyone experienced emotiva products?

Your ATC's have fallen over mate...
 

Andrewjvt

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Gazzip said:
Andrewjvt said:
Looking at emotiva xsp-1 the best spec pre amp for the money imo at £1449 all included.

Dont know much about them so does anyone have any experience with emotiva?

Other pre amps im interested in hegel P 20 also true fully balanced and has other unbalanced pre outs.

Has anyone experienced emotiva products?

Your ATC's have fallen over mate...

Haha no not yet
 

lindsayt

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Would a stepped attenuator passive pre-amp be suitable for your needs?

If your sources all have healthy ouputs in terms of voltage: less is more.
 

Andrewjvt

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lindsayt said:
Would a stepped attenuator passive pre-amp be suitable for your needs?

If your sources all have healthy ouputs in terms of voltage: less is more.

Would you please give me some examples of some?
 

gasolin

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What about something like this, i wanted one (because of noise and channel unbalance i had with the t c electronic volume knob) when i had active studio monitors, but they are much more expensive then any active studio monitors i ever had

http://www.goldpt.com/sa4.html

sa4_ang1r.jpg
 

Andrewjvt

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Mark Rose-Smith said:
Project pre box rs or the pre box rs digital might be right up your street.both come with balanced xlr connections if needed.

Very cool.looking but i dont want to get into tubes just yet. I take it you run one into naims? Ive also heard of people running these sort onto atc actives.
Thanks for info
 

lindsayt

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Andrewjvt said:
lindsayt said:
Would a stepped attenuator passive pre-amp be suitable for your needs?

If your sources all have healthy ouputs in terms of voltage: less is more.

Would you please give me some examples of some?
The Goldpoint from gasolin's post is a good example. There are others.

I'd just buy the first one of any make (that looked to have reasonable resistors) that I saw a good deal on.

Buying a stepped attenuator. 2nd hand is fine as there's such a minimal risk of anything going wrong or wearing out.
 

Andrewjvt

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lindsayt said:
Andrewjvt said:
lindsayt said:
Would a stepped attenuator passive pre-amp be suitable for your needs?

If your sources all have healthy ouputs in terms of voltage: less is more.

Would you please give me some examples of some?
The Goldpoint from gasolin's post is a good example. There are others.

I'd just buy the first one of any make (that looked to have reasonable resistors) that I saw a good deal on.

Buying a stepped attenuator. 2nd hand is fine as there's such a minimal risk of anything going wrong or wearing out.

For passive preamps... at what voltage should the source output to have decent volume?
 

lindsayt

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That would depend on the gain in the power amps, the sensitivity of the speakers, what any particular listener would call a decent volume and how far you're sitting from the speakers.

Of more concern is that there are source and power amp combinations where a passive pre-amp makes the system sound dynamically dead.

For a phono stage or FM tuner I'd be more inclined towards an active pre-amp. For a CD player there's a good chance passive will be better. For radio broadcast record players with inbuilt phono and linestage amplification, passive is better.
 

Andrewjvt

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lindsayt said:
That would depend on the gain in the power amps, the sensitivity of the speakers, what any particular listener would call a decent volume and how far you're sitting from the speakers.

Of more concern is that there are source and power amp combinations where a passive pre-amp makes the system sound dynamically dead.

For a phono stage or FM tuner I'd be more inclined towards an active pre-amp. For a CD player there's a good chance passive will be better. For radio broadcast record players with inbuilt phono and linestage amplification, passive is better.

What about a streamer like auralic altair or mini?
 

lindsayt

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Andrewjvt said:
What about a streamer like auralic altair or mini?
I don't know.

My guess is that they'd probably be the same as CD players in terms of passive pre-amp compatability.

If they come with a built in, analogue volume control it'd make sense to use that, if you can, straight into your power amplification.

If I added a streamer to my system, I'd be looking to try a passive and an active pre-amp to see which sounded better overall.
 

Andrewjvt

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lindsayt said:
Andrewjvt said:
What about a streamer like auralic altair or mini?
I don't know.

My guess is that they'd probably be the same as CD players in terms of passive pre-amp compatability.

If they come with a built in, analogue volume control it'd make sense to use that, if you can, straight into your power amplification.

If I added a streamer to my system, I'd be looking to try a passive and an active pre-amp to see which sounded better overall.

Its the demo's that proving hard now as im half in pro shops. I wanted to only have one box but may now have a dac/pre and seperate streamer.

Really like benchmark for dac/preamp.
I also like the hegel p20 As 'just pre amp' but then would need dac/streamer or dac and streamer so im back to 3 boxes plus then comes the av processor.
 

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