Pre amp v Amplifier

[Axlinscotland]

I have a valves Pre Amp with volume control and an integrated Amp with volume control.

While listening, which one will you recommend to set "louder", and which one will you use as a main volume control?

Cheers

[mmarston]

My instinct would be to set the power amp gain so that the preamp could drive it to clipping just below the level where the preamp distorts, and use the preamp's volume control. (I might personally use an oscilloscope to help find those levels.) But that may not always give the best results with regard to noise. It really depends on the interaction of the specific equipment. The beauty of this setup is that you can experiment. You might end up with several preferred combinations of gain settings, for different listening situations...

Hard to be more specific. You may just have to trust your ears.

Best,
Mike

[steve195527]

are you using the valve pre to drive the integrated amp via one of its line inputs?seems a bit of a waste if you are,can you not take input of valve pre directly to the input of the power amp section of the integrated amp and thus only have one pre-amp section in the signal path?I would only use one of the pre-amps:-the one which gave the best overall sound,I hope I have understood how you have these connected together,or is it a valve phono-pre with variable output?

[Axlinscotland]

Sorry, double post!

Cheers

[Axlinscotland]

I am using just one phono stage, the valves pre amp or which is actually a dedicated phono stage. The question is, how do I make my system sound louder, using the amp volume knob or givIng more outpout to the pre amp?

It would be nice to hear your answers. My thinking is that it depends on how much output you have given to the pre amp, but it is just guessing not mouch theory behind my reasoning.

Thank you for your answers.

Cheers

[Alec124c41]

Whatever you do, the system will not deliver any more power than the power amplifier can deliver. Increasing the input will not increase the maximum output.

Cheers,
Alec

[steve195527]

I am using just one phono stage, the valves pre amp or which is actually a dedicated phono stage. The question is, how do I make my system sound louder, using the amp volume knob or givIng more outpout to the pre amp?

It would be nice to hear your answers. My thinking is that it depends on how much output you have given to the pre amp, but it is just guessing not mouch theory behind my reasoning.

Thank you for your answers.

Cheers

as alec says your actual(undistorted) volume will be governed how powerful the power amp section is,you can possibly make it sound louder by increasing the input to the pre amp as after a certain level you will overload the input and cause distortion:-distorted it will sound louder and possibly cause damage to your speakers even though the "real" volume probably isn't any different

[lini]

Ais: Actually that can't really be answered without some specs (output level of cart & gain of pre -> output level of pre; input sensitivity of integrated amp (and what it's referenced to)).

But in general: In order not to unnecessarily reduce signal-to-noise (formost in case you'd have any kind of recorders connected to the integrated amp), it makes sense to turn the phono stage up pretty high (but of course not high enough to overdrive the input of the integrate amp) and use the volume control of the integrated amp as main one. However, it also makes sense to avoid the main volume control to be run in its lowest range, where it'll usually show more channel imbalance - so it can make sense to reduce the output level setting of the phono stage just enough, so that your lowest desired listening volume would be somewhere around the 9 o'clock position of the main volume control (at which channel balance should already be pretty even).

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

[PeterW.]

I am using just one phono stage, the valves pre amp or which is actually a dedicated phono stage. The question is, how do I make my system sound louder, using the amp volume knob or givIng more outpout to the pre amp?

It would be nice to hear your answers. My thinking is that it depends on how much output you have given to the pre amp, but it is just guessing not mouch theory behind my reasoning.

Thank you for your answers.

Cheers

Before any of us can give you cogent answers, just a couple of questions as I am unclear on a few points:

"Dedicated Phono Stage":

a) The pre-amp is designed *only* for a phono input, and has an on-board *gain* control.
b) The pre-amp is a conventional full-service pre-amp that has a phono-stage, and so you are using it to drive your integrated amp.

In the case of a) above, you will want to obtain a sensitive "true RMS" VOM (volt-ohm meter). Set it for ACV at the lowest possible range and connect it to the *output* of the phono pre-amp. Put on a record with a low P/A (peak-to-average) signal - Gregorian chant, Bach harpsichord preludes and similar come to mind for this purpose. Adjust the gain on the pre-amp such that the *average* reading on the VOM is 2V but/or no more than a tiny bit over in AVERAGE - momentary fluctuations may be from 0V (silence) to 3V (cymbal crash), but should be mostly at 2V. This is the "design input voltage" for your integrated amp, and should not be exceeded as you may overload it otherwise.

In the case of b) above - use the line-out/tape-out feature of the pre-amp and the "Spare" line-in of the integrated amp. This output will be at the proper voltage for the integrated amp and bypass all the tone/volume/filter controls in the pre-amp.

Cascading two volume controls is a recipe for distortion and potential damage to your speakers from excessive clipping - especially if you are running at relatively high volumes.

Good luck with it!

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

[davejo]

I am using just one phono stage, the valves pre amp or which is actually a dedicated phono stage. The question is, how do I make my system sound louder, using the amp volume knob or givIng more outpout to the pre amp?

It would be nice to hear your answers. My thinking is that it depends on how much output you have given to the pre amp, but it is just guessing not mouch theory behind my reasoning.

Thank you for your answers.

Cheers

Before any of us can give you cogent answers, just a couple of questions as I am unclear on a few points:

"Dedicated Phono Stage":

a) The pre-amp is designed *only* for a phono input, and has an on-board *gain* control.
b) The pre-amp is a conventional full-service pre-amp that has a phono-stage, and so you are using it to drive your integrated amp.

In the case of a) above, you will want to obtain a sensitive "true RMS" VOM (volt-ohm meter). Set it for ACV at the lowest possible range and connect it to the *output* of the phono pre-amp. Put on a record with a low P/A (peak-to-average) signal - Gregorian chant, Bach harpsichord preludes and similar come to mind for this purpose. Adjust the gain on the pre-amp such that the *average* reading on the VOM is 2V but/or no more than a tiny bit over in AVERAGE - momentary fluctuations may be from 0V (silence) to 3V (cymbal crash), but should be mostly at 2V. This is the "design input voltage" for your integrated amp, and should not be exceeded as you may overload it otherwise.

In the case of b) above - use the line-out/tape-out feature of the pre-amp and the "Spare" line-in of the integrated amp. This output will be at the proper voltage for the integrated amp and bypass all the tone/volume/filter controls in the pre-amp.

Cascading two volume controls is a recipe for distortion and potential damage to your speakers from excessive clipping - especially if you are running at relatively high volumes.

Good luck with it!

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

This is exactly what i was looking for.I was just browsing for relevant posts for my project and I happened to stumble upon yours. thank you for the informative post!

dave