Should I add a valve pre amp?

[nickv]

Hi AOS, Would really appreciate some advice/guidance as I am far from an expert...

For my work system I am toying with adding a valve pre amp.

The room is 8x8x2.4m concrete floor. Not hi-fi heaven. It's a studio and we like to listen to quality music. Have been trying a few different amps speakers and we are getting somewhere.

Currently the rig is:
Kenwood KT5020 FM tuner
Sony multiple CD player
Iphone 6 playing Spotify Premium etc...
into Beresford SEC DAC (FM Tuner comes in via chap analogue to digital converter)
Proceed Amplifier 2 Power Amp
Speakers Celestion 44's

As the acoustics are brutal I am thinking of adding valves and if I got a valve pre amp I could put the FM tuner directly into it (as putting analogue to digital does make the FM radio sound a bit flat). We listen to FM radio on fairly quiet most of the day, but I do crank it up and use CD's and phone when alone.

Or i could add a valve buffer?

My budget is £600. Do you think valves will help?

Thanks for any guidance or experience you may care to pass on.

[Nigel]

One of those ifi itube2 valve buffers might be exactly what you are looking for. They can be used as a single input pre amp as well, assuming swapping cables is no hardship, access wise. I'm sure you could pick up a used example and sell it on for not much loss, if it didn't produce the required results.

[nickv]

Thanks Nigel. That Ifi Micro Itube 2 is one option but only having one input would mean I need to add a switch I guess, to facilitate the FM radio to avoid going into the DAC. I could switch between the DAC output and the FM radio. Wonder if a switch will cause any issues?

[AJSki2fly]

Hi AOS, Would really appreciate some advice/guidance as I am far from an expert...

For my work system I am toying with adding a valve pre amp.

The room is 8x8x2.4m concrete floor. Not hi-fi heaven. It's a studio and we like to listen to quality music. Have been trying a few different amps speakers and we are getting somewhere.

.......

As the acoustics are brutal I am thinking of adding valves and if I got a valve pre amp I could put the FM tuner directly into it (as putting analogue to digital does make the FM radio sound a bit flat). We listen to FM radio on fairly quiet most of the day, but I do crank it up and use CD's and phone when alone.

Or i could add a valve buffer?

My budget is £600. Do you think valves will help?

Thanks for any guidance or experience you may care to pass on.

Hi Nick, adding a valve buffer/pre-amp will change the sound characteristics, but it might not have the overall desired effect IMHO. As you say an 8*8*2.4M room is quite a large expanse and square rooms can also be very problematic acoustically.

I would recommend that you look at the walls, and floor to start with and determine how much of them are just smooth shiny surfaces, if most of it is then you will be getting all sorts of echo/reverb going on through reflections and the higher frequencies are likely to be exaggerated. What would be worth doing is getting some old blankets and temporarily fixing them to the walls each side of the speakers and possible the wall behind where you sit, also try placing some cushions/pillows in the rear corners to try and stop bass re-enforcement(unless that's what you like). I think with a bit of experimentation you will get an improvement in SQ. Once you are happy then you could make/buy some acoustic panels or nice wall coverings to do the same.

The other thing to carefully consider is speaker position and listening position in relation to them. I would thoroughly recommend you have a read of this https://www.tnt-audio.com/casse/waspe.html and watch this
https://youtu.be/UOI8py0DAC8

Getting the most out of your speakers and room is one of the most important aspects of a HiFi system, once you are happy that you have it as good as you can get then it would be time to try other bits of kit if you need or want to.

I hope this helps a bit, I realise that you might have already gone through this process but its worth mentioning.

Adrian

[nickv]

Very interesting video, thanks for sharing. I have tried several speaker positions. We move around a lot, but the sweet listening spot is in the middle of the room. I guess the only way to see if a valve pre or buffer helps is to try...

Any other recommendations within my £600 budget?

Thanks.

[anthonyTD]

Hi Nick,
Valve preamplifiers [not buffers] when done correctly are very linear, and can make a good amplifier and speaker set up really sing, but please don't expect it to make your system sound softer, and more forgiving, because it will most probably have the opposite affect.
Most valve buffers are cathode follower types, and have their own sound, which many have issue with.
Hope this helps.
A...

[hifinutt]

One of those ifi itube2 valve buffers might be exactly what you are looking for. They can be used as a single input pre amp as well, assuming swapping cables is no hardship, access wise. I'm sure you could pick up a used example and sell it on for not much loss, if it didn't produce the required results.

getting a decent valve amp on your budget is a bit challenging , i would go with nigels suggestion . you could get an arcam c31 for your budget as well , while not valve its VERY good for the money

https://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/threads/arcam-c31-pre-amplifier.251108/

[nickv]

I will avoid following cathodes then, as that sounds a black hole. Will look around, or maybe post a wanted, for a used valve pre amp and see what comes up. The Ifi itube2 seems to be out of stock.

Thanks all, much appreciated. Any other ideas are most welcome.

[Macca]

Most FM radio stations use a lot of compression so dynamic range is very low. They do this so you can hear the quiet bits in the music when in a car, or workspace where background noise is high.

That's why it sounds flat compared to CD. It almost certainly isn't the analogue to digital converter causing that. There's not really anything you can do about it. You could spend the £600 on a better ADC and see if that helps any but I doubt it will.

Take Adrian's advice on damping down the acoustics, that will be a worthwhile improvement.

[sailor]

Hi Nick, you say your acoustics are 'brutal'. You got some good advice from Adrian and it should be considered. Unfortunately changing or adding components can't correct poor room acoustics, only acoustic treatment can! This means

What you have though is an unusually large room which normally requires less treatment. Also a larger room requires more diffusion than absorption. If you can DIY them you will save a bundle, they are time consuming but not difficult to build.

If you have chosen the middle of the room to listen from then you have placed yourself slap in an area of cancellation. Try listening 38% from the front or back wall. You will hear less damage from there.

Acoustics have a huge effect on sound and is really worth the effort of trying to tame them.

[hifinutt]

can i add this firebottle pre amp to the mix , a bit over your budget but its good

https://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?72223-FS-Firebottle-KIN-line-phono-stage-preamplifier

[nickv]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'll try to improve the acoustics. That Firebottle pre is very tempting, but a little over budget.