As Paul has stated many times, he advocates using a preamp with the PMG DAC.
I have a digital only system and have been using the PMG for months without a preamp and I can’t imagine it can sound any better with a preamp. Or have I been using a preamp of sorts? You see I have a JL Audio CR-1 electronic crossover in my system which feeds a pair of JL e110 subs and a Pass 250.8 amp to Maggie 3.7x speakers. So… can the CR-1 be considered a preamp? What say you Paul.
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The honest answer to improve your system is:
1. yes, get a preamp
- get a REL subwoofer and connect the REL sub from your amplifier
- remove the active crossover from the signal path
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I have to agree with “Uncle Pauly”. 5 years ago, I took a leap of faith and bought a used BAT VK50-SE from TMR (great people BTW). Prior to that, I ran it direct from the XLR outs of the DSSr. While that sounded great. The tube preamp just “kicked it up a notch”. Wider soundstage, more focused phantom center. Not so much changed in the Bass department if memory serves.
Recently, I found myself in that same situation (I still Rock the DSSr. BTW) . Last year. I sold back the BAT to TMR and tried and liked the single ended Galion P75 and more recently the Galion Navy, also a single ended design but a true dual mono implementation including dual toroidal transformers.
To match the XLR inputs of my solid silver wired Orchard Audio Ultra Amps. I use their active opamp based rca to XLR adapter which does no harm to the audio path but gives a true differential signal to my Amps.
To answer your question. My dream DAC is the PMG. My dream preamp is the PMG.
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I have not yet tried pulling my ARC pre out of the system yet so I cannot comment is PMG Dac is good enough as pre. Going to try at some point.
But I used to have a CR-1 that let me share my Rythmik dual 15” G25HP with theater and 2 channel. Then I chatted with Chris B and since inhave full range towers (Sopra 2) he convinced me to try going speaker level. So I found a pair of used Rythmik Fs12SE close to me. OMG never going back.
I will tell you what Chris told me. If you have full range towers there your dynamics will improve so much if you uses them how they are designed full range with no cross over. Go speaker level for sure.
I you choose to keep the CR-1 I would not consider it a preamp at all.
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I read your post and I can’t tell if any of it was related to the topic. Am I at fault?
Al was that comment to my response? I thought I answered Denny’s questions. At least one of them and said I could not comment on the first as I have not tired yet.
Brian, my JL subs have a high level input and the CR-1 can be bypassed with a button as you know, so I will give it a try. My Maggie’s are full range but don’t go as low as your Sopras and they benefit from rolling off the bottom end to let the subs do their thing also puts less demand on the amp. I’ll be leaving for a Christmas break with the family so I’ll let you know how it works after the holidays. Happy holidays to you and your family.
Good luck. You will be amazed on how it sounds. Make some money back by selling the CR-1 like I did. it paid for my new FS12SE’s with some cash left over. I got the subs really cheap and it was local pick up.
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