Going sans preamp, directly source>amp

[brucew268]

Having recently been encouraged to try running my DAC directly into my Amp, I gave it a go to see how much better the sound might be. They mentioned my amplifier was a good candidate for this config, and it would be a good test to predict whether a passive might be preferred in my system. Sans preamp was slightly better in harmonics, textures, inner detail, bass pitch, but not nearly so much as to bother with… spend any money on.

Any thoughts on why this might be? Would that tend to indicate that my preamp is better at letting the sound through than I might have assumed? Or maybe that my amp is the bottleneck in the sound (if one exists)?

To be sure, the sound is very good and engaging, whether in getting into the music or through an analytical lens. But I’m always interested in what might make the sound better. (So far most of my experiments have yielded improvements that are rather small, non-existent, or trade offs a small improvement in one area for a loss in another area.)

[The Grand Wazoo]

Well, don't you think that most modern DACs are, in fact, pre-amps with integrated digital processing? I've thought this for quite some time and once started a rather inconsequential AoS thread about it.
I don't know what your system consists of, but it sounds like you've gone from having two pre's to one - you've got rid of a load of circuitry, which is usually a good thing.

[brucew268]

I don't claim to be technically proficient, but I tend to identify the following with role of a preamp: volume control, low level processing of signal for presentation to an amp, switching between sources. So I suppose the analog stage might be said to do some low level signal processing and boost, but would not that also be the case of DAC's 20 years ago? Me DAC does not have a volume control.

In any case, I was surprise at how little improvement was gained when I removed the preamp (Classe Audio 30).

[Ali Tait]

Impedance matching can be a factor too.