What contributes most to the sound,the pre or power?

How do you tell which is contributing most to the sound?how can you say the pre sounds like this? or the power sounds like that? I was wondering as i'm hoping,not sure how it will go,a Conrad Johnson tubed pre to a bel canto power and wondered which of the two will pass on thier character at the final sound?

Thoughts?

 

Personally, Adam, if the whole ensemble made a nice noise, I couldn't care less.

 

Another unhelpful answer coming up here...

Get an integrated instead. That way you'll lose less sleep worrying over which, the pre or the power, has the most affect on the final sound. Additional advantage also are that you'll free up some rack space, be less troubled by interconnect and power cable choices, being troubled by other choices such as whether to use a passive or active pre, oh and you'll save some money too.

A sensible answer to the original question: both! 50/50

 

boo hoo ,don't say that Henry,Ive already got a valve integrated,just really liked the Conrad Johnson when I heard them,it has an attached power cord already,so no worries there,and have heard nothing but praise for the bel cantos,just was curious as to which was influencing the sound the most.

 

Adam,

IMO garbage in garbage out.

In all systems I have played with the preamp (or more likely the source) will have more affect than the power amp on perceived tonal qualities.

Put another way, I have never heard of someone choosing a SS pre with Valve power out of choice (but maybe TEAD are about to change that!)

 

Adam - hope you're going to audition them together in your system first chap?

I know the PV10 well and have auditioned Belcanto Evo 2's before.

The BC is very powerful and very clean. To my ears it sounds world beating on good recordings and revealing of wart's n' all with a bad one. The PV10 sounds nice and fruity but is a little coloured for me.

Even though I know the kit I have no idea what they'll be like together, or what they'll be like with your B&Ws of course.

You might want to PM Lilolee, WM. I think they tried valve pre's with Belcantos. Perhaps they would give you the low-down?...

Happy upgrading!
Chris

 

Adam, so many answers, depends on how transprent the amplifier is/how good the pre is, the belcanto's are virtualy a straight piece of wire, with a hint of warmth in the mid band, running the wadia just gives you the wadia sound (improved of coarse), again with a tough of glow in ther mids, I've used a chord/ML/spectral pre's all sounded subtley different, except the spectral which was very good, although for £12K for a slightly more than smallish improvement, and the chord which had it's own agenda . As Henry says, why worry too much

 

Thanxs for your views everyone,
Chris I've heard the Conrad johnson,which I liked very much,and seems to be viewed and regarded very highly here,so I found one in absolutely mint condition,but without the phono stage unfortuntely,to me it sounded sweeter and with more warmth than the copland,which to me excels at vocals,with the frecquince? extremes taking backstage,but the dealer here suggested the C-J to be better than the Copland,but you'll never find a Bel Canto here,impossible,but the feedback from it,especially from Tony and thoes who have heard it,have given nothing but praise,so i took the chance in ordering one,as the €uro is so good against the $$$ it would be foolish to miss this good chance,plus so far the Spanish customs have been kind to me compared to the uk customs,so it's worked out a good deal,but was curious to which of the two would have the greater effect on the sound.

As everyone says just enjoy them, which I shall do,I'm still awaiting the Bel canto to arrive,from which Tony has told me is a simple flick of a switch to change the voltage,and the Conrad johnson, is being looked at by a local hifi repair shop as Conrad johson sent me the details of how to rewire the transformer,which looks fairly straight foward ( I hope so),so should get that back soon,plus i've just had made by maddog2 some of his diffusors,which I must say have been exellentely crafted and finished,a very proffesional job,which im looking forward to setting up,all in things are sounding pretty good.

 

I started with a Densen integrated and I was happy. I added a power amp and I was quite a bit happier.

I then swapped the integrated for a dedicated preamp by Densen.

I was ecstatic. I thought I'd just get a bit more detail coming through; I didn't realise that I'd also get more welly and thwack too.

I also heard a Densen DM10 integrated versus a DM20 pre with a lowly Rotel RB981 power. The Densen provided the finesse and control and the Rotel delivered its balls on a plate to the Dynaudios. (This was at Paul Duerden's place if anyone is interested.) The mongrel pre/power was better than the pedigree Densen integrated.

I've also heard a few Naim systems. My first instinct was to pick a bigger power amp from the shop floor to go in the dem room.

Thus the 102 pre dumped a 140 for a 250 as its partner. I didn't get more balls just more harshness.

In turn the 250 dumped the 102 for an 82. Now that was a big improvement in detail, finesse as well as sheer balls.

Never underestimate what a decent active pre can do for grunt as well as finesse (unless you use a CD player that also acts as a pre and happens to do the job rather well.)

 

IMO it's the power amp. The Pre-amp I believe is nothing much more than a control amp, so it may not be that criticlal in the chain compared to the power amp.

regards

 

Providing your power amp is reasonable and capable of driving whatever you drive, the pre or source will have a far greater impact on the final result.

The power amp has certainly not yet become a limiting factor to the rest of the system improvements in my case, anyway.

Andy.

 

Changing from a Audiolab 8000C and 8000P to a Densen B200/B300 my judgement was that the preamp change made the biggest difference. Now this may say more about the 8000C than preamps in general (as your question asks) but, in this instance, the preamp determined the style of the amps presentation.

The power amp also made a difference but this was more subtle - the B300 was more polite and even-handed, the 8000P more muscular.

Anyone out there with the 8000C+P setup - grab yourself a Densen B200 (or any good preamp for that matter) - it'll transform your system

But a valve pre with a powerful SS power amp is a tempting combination, I must admit.

 

I fell into the pre/power argument when I realised that AV kit dont do music well - duh.

During my upgrade journey via transport/dac vs integrated CD players I worried what I would do when I hit the pre/power vs integrated amp arguments again. I liked the line taken at AudioSynthesis, that the best pre-amp was no pre-amp, hence their inclusion of attenuation in their Dax Decade. I suppose there may be arguments that the dac is not 'pure', but its then up to manufacturer to ensure the best signal that the dac can put out, and hence the power amp can amplify.

 

Only way you can tell is to 'know' the sound of each component.

How? the way that this becomes apparent is really via relative comparison...you can't really say something sounds 'bright' on its own, has to be relative to something else. ie something 'darker'

It is true though that if you have come to know something else well, then you can use a kind of memory you have.

Each component has its own voice, its own sonic fingerprint, due to its design, and how that will end up in the 'mix' is anybodys guess, but rest assured, everything will give its individual contribution. Nothing is 'true' neutral. Its all relative.

 

Re: Re: What contributes most to the sound,the pre or power?

But I think one thing to consider here also is voltage gain in relation to one component being partnered with another. Can a pre-amp possibly "overload' a power amp much like what a cdp does to the amp in most cases? If this is possible, then how can one tell if a component's "sound" is the "real" one?


regards

 

hmmmm this is getting into an area I don't understand...I am not sure if cds do overload an amp,

cds put out 'nominally' 2 volts, which is the industry standard, now some cd players put out a lot more, some less, so if you do a side by side comparison, you will think the louder one sounds way better.

If you don't understand what is going on, the wool will be pulled over your eyes, and you will gravitate to the loud one, and the quiet will sound awful, thin repressed.

Some speaker makers know about this and do it to their speakers, kef for one, and in the shop kefs do sound impressive for that reason.

The 2volt output of a cd then goes into the pre, or the integrated, where it goes via a swithing network : a relay on posh amps, a selector on others, into either a buffer stage or through the volume control.

Now the vol will 'reduce' that 2 volts to a fraction of it, so you might have a signal of 1/2 volt or a lot less.

The input sensitivity, say 300mv, means the amp needs 300 mvolts, or 0.3 volts to drive it to full power, so the gain of the amp is the voltage out /voltage in, we know the volts in, 300mv for full volts out, if we measure full volts out, we know the gain.

volts gain = vout/vin,

vin = sensitivity

vout, you can get the power supply from...

exceeding the psu rails causes voltage clipping
so anything less than 0.3 volts will not produce the full power of the amp, which is good, as it would be deafening.

This is where I get a bit confused, the headroom is to do with how many volts you can put in, but you see that an 'attenuated' cd will not drive it to full power, so not causing overload or clipping.

Some power amps are insensitive, requiring 1 volt in to full output, so low output sources such as tape/tuners may not drive them to full output. So we need a pre-amp to give a gain of around 3.3 ie 300mvolts x 3.3(gain of the pre)=1 volt, to enable the power amp to be fully driven.
This is the rationale behind some active pres, tho passive can be used if you have cd( just a volume control to attenuate the signal) it always sounds better to my ears to have a bit of boost.