What's the purpose of a preamp?

[Macca]

Indeed, Anthony, which brings us to what Martin wrote yesterday:



The bit in bold of course refers to the point just made. Once it's gone, it's GONE.

No speakers can make up for any signal degradation/information loss further up the chain. All they can do is alter the tonal presentation, and perhaps add some 'zing', but it won't genuinely address any loss of leading edge definition, upstream. That's the unfortunate reality.

In terms of the first sentence, Martin. that's quite a step change from your position when this subject was last discussed, only weeks ago, and where you were adamant no such 'softness' existed...

Marco.

We're not talking about signal degradation as such, more a tonal balance, so I'd argue that it can be compensated for. Assuming it is an issue to begin with. As I said above, with a quality passive it is fractional at best.