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Thread: Preamp/amp combos ?s |
    
notarichman Unregistered guest |
| Posted on Friday, March 26, 2004 - 01:00 pm: |
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I am considering upgrading from receiver to seperates. My question is how much does the preamp "color" sound. I am thinking about getting the NAD 973 amp paired with the Outlaw 950 Pre. I like the sound of the Nad amp and have heard it many times at the local dealer. He's got one that I can get a pretty good deal on. The Outlaw Pre is nearly half the price of the NAD 163. How do you think these components will match up?
Also- I see a lot of talk out there about seperates. I was wonderinging what interconnects you all use. Opinions?
Thanks! |
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Silver Member Username: Gman
Mt. Pleasant,
SC
Post Number: 345
Registered: Dec-03
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| Posted on Friday, March 26, 2004 - 11:22 pm: |
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A well-made amp or preamp shouldn't color the sound unless you use features that alter the sound. And a well-schooled engineer should make an amp and preamp as transparent as he/she knows how. The DSP processing along with frequency boosting or lessening is how one should alter sound.
Obviously the build quality is better on various preamps and the features can vary greatly--along with the remotes. You make your choices on which features and operation characteristics you want--you pay your money. On any quality preamp distortion is a non-issue. Some have better stereo and analog bypasses (cleaner circuitry with low crosstalk and good separation) than others.
The speakers you choose and their interaction with your room will mostly determine the sound you hear when your components are operating neutrally. As long as you have sufficient and clean power, along with a preamp that in neutral operation is transparent, you will have good performance.
As far as interconnects, there are plenty of excellent ones that are fairly inexpensive. Inexpensive Monster Cable interconnects are good--and Parts express has some excellent speaker wire and interconnects---from coaxial digital, to optical digital, to audio interconnects, and compnent video interconnects. Even DVI or HDMI interconnects.
Outlaw Audio has some excellent (and a bit more expensive ones) if you choose to go that route.
The Outlaw preamp will work fine with the NAD amp, an Outlaw amp, an ATI amp, or most any other well made amp.
As long as a person has good components, the weak link will almost invariably be the speakers and the speakers interaction with the room.
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