I’ve got the DirectStream MKII, PST and BHK preamp and was looking at the PMG series and thinking of upgrading.
Looking at the PMG Preamp owners reference manual I see that although the preamp is balanced from input to output and has four balanced XLR inputs , The Fixed Volume (Home Theater Bypass) is only available on RCA2. Why doesn’t it have the option of a balanced input? My home theater, like many others is run with XLR cables on all of the fully balanced amps to the multichannel pre/pro to give the best sound quality. The home theatre setting on the BHK Pre can be set to a balanced input. It seems a retrograde step that the new PMG Signature Preamp can only connect via RCA2. Surely the option of a balanced input is possible via a firmware update?
Good point. There is only so much room on the rear panel for connectors and it’s always a tough choice of where to go only RCA (which is required for many types of HT equipment) and where to also offer XLR for HT (much rarer). We made the decision to service HT with just RCA. Sorry about that. I wish we could fix it with a simple firmware upgrade, but it’s a hardware issue. Know that once inside the PMG, it goes balanced.
It’s not really about limitation of hardware room - to have enough connector on the rear panel though is it. On the PMG Pre, the Fixed Volume / home theater bypass shares an input with the RCA2 sockets. It doesn’t need its own sockets. (When Fixed Volume is turned off, RCA2 is a standard input) On the BHK pre it can be RCA or XLR (or if it’s turned off it’s a standard input).
The PMG Pre already has Input Trim - allowing up to 10db of increase or decrease in signal level per individual input. Surely one of the existing XLR input could have an option of a Unity Gain setting? (via firmware update) And when turned off it would be a standard XLR input?
would need to bypass the volume control too in ht bypass mode - always dangerous on a general purpose input?
and if firmware can reroute the input direct to the output i’m very interested in the internal architecture of the pre
