I have the balanced, high outputs from my preamp driving my Eigentact power amp, which is set to it's lowest gain of 12.5 dB. This arrangement allows me to drive my reasonably efficienct [91dB] speakers to well beyond comfortable listening SPL's levels, in my medium sized room. Your article confirms that, from a s/n point of view, this is the best arrangement. An interesting area of system synergy that is not often discussed. Many thanks.
Just like a guitar amp. Makes solid sense. The power amp is where the headroom lies. Just look at David Gilmour's guitar rig. You could beat his HIWATTS with a hammer and never get them to distort until he stomps on a big muff fuzz or or his Tube Driver pedal. Pure clean tones into the big dog stomps on one of the big dogs.
Hi Gene, thank you for the depth of information provided! My current very modest system provides me with some nice audio and given this info I am wondering if I might see a benefit to adding a pre amp in between my DAC and amp. Components are 2 sources: Sony CD/DVD carousel player optical connection to smsl su-1 DAC and a Wiim mini optical connection to the su-1. Then the analog connection to a Fosi bt20a pro with sparkos op amps driving polk RTi38's and a Polk psw303 sub. Modest yes, but fun! Would a preamp between dac and amp using the preamp for volume potentially make a difference?
What are the best practices if I use the WiiM Ultra? It's a digital preamplifier with subwoofer output, high and low pass filters, EQ functionality and RCA preamplifier outputs. I usually listen at around 20-25 and rarely up to 45 if the track is quieter (max is 100). Should I upgrade my power amplifier to one with a lower gain? My amplifier is rated at 29db, 50w in 8 ohms. Thank you! 😎
Great topic and wonderful explanations as always from Benchmark! Gene, considering you have measured a lot of Denon receivers, would you use the low or high gain of a power amp (23/29dB in my case). It's the pream good enough for 23dB? Denon 4800
I would probably stick with the 29dB setting unless 4Vrms will make your amp reach max power when set to 23dB. Run the calculation based on the power rating of your amp. 23dB at 4Vrms should get you 400 watts at 8 ohms.
@Audioholics I have a Hegel C53, rated at 150W/8Ohm. If I run the math from your 2013 article (awesome job by the way) I get 2.45V @ 23dB and 1,23V @ 29dB. This should be plenty for the Denon preamp mode rated at 3.75V
Wondering the same thing. Denon X6700H, running external amps for most channels, but not all. Any idea what the voltage output is when it is not running in full preamp mode?
My late-70s vintage McIntosh preamp is rated for 250 mV input but my DAC puts out 2V (no volume control on DAC). Would this be an exception to the recommendation for high gain at the preamp stage? If I turn the preamp volume high, won't it clip severely in this case? If so, how do I find the sweet spot (without a test bench)? My amp has continuous gain knobs (per channel).
great video, and it has convinced me to physically move my headphone amp so that i can reach its analog volume control rather than control volume on my streamer's app in DSP before the DAC. but that still leaves EQ unaddressed. DSP EQ is essentially DSP volume reduction applied selectively across the frequency spectrum, and we now see that increases net noise sent to the amp. given that analog EQ components also come with additional noise and fidelity loss (looking at you, Schiit Loki), plus analog EQ rarely offers as much control as DSP, are we better off accepting the lost S/N that comes with using DSP, or are we better skipping DSP EQ and using analog EQ when possible?
I, like so many others have bought the hot selling WiiM Ultra and are using it as a pre-amp. It's connected to a Emotiva BasX amp. Any thoughts on settings? Components inputs. RCA outputs?
Truly insightful, great work Gene and John, more of these please! Really interesting to hear the “red herring” of paper-spec DAC chipsets vs proper hardware architecture. You guys are the BS filter for the marketing material produced by a lot of consumer audio kit! A Technical subject, Beautifully explained.
I keep hearing RCA connections are 2v. I have 2008 pioneer AV receiver hooked up to an external amplifier. When I look at specs for AV receiver audio section input line sensitivity 335mv and output level 335mv. My external amp has a variable input sensitivity gain knob on the back spec says 350mv to 2.8v. Not many amps have a variable input sensitivity adjustment. Why not it seems to make sense? Can you shed some light on these discrepancies? Correct me if I am wrong but my understanding is to get both full power and dynamic range the amplifier is design to expect a specific input voltage if no input sensitivity adjustment is available. So if the input voltage is below you don't get max power and if the input voltage is above you don't get max dynamic range. What he says in the video sounds correct if you were recording music with microphones, ADC's and such for best signal to noise and sound quality. When playing back music you need to control the volume somewhere and that's usually the voltage level at the source or preamp and not full level always. The amp max performance is at the expected input voltage.
THANK YOU for the video! Now, that's something truly important for our hobby, witch is a matching game! More on these really essential matters! Thanks Gene much appreciated!
That's a lot of numbers to explain a simple fact. More gain in the poweramp means more noise...so keep your gain on the last stage as low as possible, more headroom more dynamics less noise
If your signal voltage from the source is lower than the expected input voltage design of the amplifier you will not get all the power (Watts) from the amp. Making sure both voltages match is the best setup
Perfect timing Gene, i was just going through this exact thing with my DAC levels and amp volume, i had convinced myself that when at full volume my dac was adding brightness to the upper mids, then further convinced myself running it @ -10db was a solution. Sigh haha
Gene, was that dbSPL produced taking into account human hearing sensitivity? Or was it assuming flat hearing and speaker sensitivity curve ? I see that FFT spike is at 1khz so..for that it shouldn't matter much ?
This video was confusing, could it be summed up in one sentence? I'm assuming the advice is run the signal hot and the amp gain low to minimize noise? I have a receiver so this would only apply to my subwoofer line out where I do the opposite which is run the plate amp hot and then turn the signal down via a -db setting on the receiver, this is to avoid clipping and noise in a subwoofer signal isn't a concern.
So i should turn my gain down on my parasound jc5? I was told by parasound to have the gain on the highest.. and how does it effect the power, i asume i have to turn the volume on the pre alot more up go get de same volume. Feel like there is a loss of power if the gain is on low🤷♂️
I have a hifi system. I only have an amplifier, no preamp or external DAC. There's no way to change volume on any other device but the amp. In this case I doubt there's anything to optimize.
I hear zero noise when running enough gain to drive my speakers to 95+ peaks at my listening position. Even with one of my preamps set to no gain i get no noise on either my old school, Class AB power amp or the Class D power amp. One speaker pair is about 86db efficiency the other old JBL monitors is 89 .... according to their spec sheet. Various settings I've tried add no really noticeable noise. If I had very high efficiency speakers.... say... 102... I would not have to turn the amps up as loud .... so still no real objectionable noise. The real noise i hear is from vinyl records and sometimes a poorly recorded CD. On multiple powered monitors there is a very slight bit of noise from the tweeter but that does not increase at high gain. So.... with even modestly priced audio products today noise is really not a problem.
The point? With today's electronic components there are no noise issues. My preamps have no audible noise. Never heard any noise from any of my power amps. Some have no volume controls. No noise in any of my preamps. Set up totally wrong and there's stilll no audible noise even at max spl. Old components did have audible noise and I have heard noise from the tweeters in some lower end powered studio monitors. Some source material is a bit of noise, but even this is rare today. Appreciate the info but I've never had a noise issue with any home stereo equipment. Recording live performances with lower end components reveal some noise and in this case, proper setup is important. Still, given the capabilities of even modestly priced stuff, it's easy to get quiet recordings.
Good topic, I have followed a similar suggestion to lower the digital preamp volume gain of my foobar2000 player from Hans, and that alone improved the sound quality to my hear: ruclips.net/video/yhwNiCt-Kiw/видео.htmlsi=J1X6boG2UQVYVKfT
@@scottivlow9962 This is a fact based channel hosted by engineers and other subject matter experts. If that bores you, there are plenty of RUclips channels to watch press release style powder puff reviews with cool camera angles and nifty music.
@lgmediapcsalon9440 I spent so much money on 3 sets of surround speakers, 9 sets of RCA speaker cables, RCA adapters & connectors and 2 pairs of wall mounts since last September. I also bought islolaion pads for my subwoofer, sound bar and small one on the back of the speakers. I want to eventually add 3D sound islolaion pads on my walls near my speakers. My grip is with the whole audio industry that has no damn clue that for people that buy any Vizio soundbar can try an up sale on speakers that go far beyond the stock speakers you get from Vizio. The trick to make it work RCA Y adapters that plug in back of Vizio subwoofers. I have 2 sets of 3 way speakers and 2 sets of 2 way speakers. I wanted the best of the pros and cons from both types. I have a total of 10 surround speakers now. I need an Arc / eARC audio extractor and a new HDMI cable. I have a non functional Vizio soundbar that needs an audio connection to my TV.. I'm already planning out my next upgrade to my Vizio thin and long speaker wire to something shorter and thicker for a better appearance.
SNR value is actually a way to cheat about how good it is , the higher the better but they are two different way to get this value higher , most engineer they increase the signal amplitude then you get high SNR value, the Audiophile engineering way is that you decrease the noise floor. Decrease noise demand good engineering. Difficult to approach it. But it is right Audiophile👋👋👋👋👋 engineering 😅
These Benchmark collaborations are very interesting. Thank you for making these videos.
Always learning a lot on your channel Gene !!! Thanks for the video 😁😁😁
I have the balanced, high outputs from my preamp driving my Eigentact power amp, which is set to it's lowest gain of 12.5 dB.
This arrangement allows me to drive my reasonably efficienct [91dB] speakers to well beyond comfortable listening SPL's levels, in my medium sized room.
Your article confirms that, from a s/n point of view, this is the best arrangement.
An interesting area of system synergy that is not often discussed.
Many thanks.
I have the same setup without a preamp and sounds amazing. Way better than with the buffer gain on.
👍👍👍 best video on audio on RUclips! Thank you so much!
Just like a guitar amp. Makes solid sense. The power amp is where the headroom lies. Just look at David Gilmour's guitar rig. You could beat his HIWATTS with a hammer and never get them to distort until he stomps on a big muff fuzz or or his Tube Driver pedal. Pure clean tones into the big dog stomps on one of the big dogs.
Hi Gene, thank you for the depth of information provided! My current very modest system provides me with some nice audio and given this info I am wondering if I might see a benefit to adding a pre amp in between my DAC and amp.
Components are 2 sources: Sony CD/DVD carousel player optical connection to smsl su-1 DAC and a Wiim mini optical connection to the su-1. Then the analog connection to a Fosi bt20a pro with sparkos op amps driving polk RTi38's and a Polk psw303 sub.
Modest yes, but fun! Would a preamp between dac and amp using the preamp for volume potentially make a difference?
Sorry, CD/DVD is coaxial connection to DAC
Topping and SMSL DACs don’t yet have good volume controls like Benchmark and RME DACs
What are the best practices if I use the WiiM Ultra? It's a digital preamplifier with subwoofer output, high and low pass filters, EQ functionality and RCA preamplifier outputs.
I usually listen at around 20-25 and rarely up to 45 if the track is quieter (max is 100).
Should I upgrade my power amplifier to one with a lower gain? My amplifier is rated at 29db, 50w in 8 ohms.
Thank you! 😎
I just want to listen to music in the precious little free time that I ever have. Makes me just buy one cheap box.
Great topic and wonderful explanations as always from Benchmark!
Gene, considering you have measured a lot of Denon receivers, would you use the low or high gain of a power amp (23/29dB in my case). It's the pream good enough for 23dB? Denon 4800
I would probably stick with the 29dB setting unless 4Vrms will make your amp reach max power when set to 23dB. Run the calculation based on the power rating of your amp. 23dB at 4Vrms should get you 400 watts at 8 ohms.
@Audioholics I have a Hegel C53, rated at 150W/8Ohm. If I run the math from your 2013 article (awesome job by the way) I get 2.45V @ 23dB and 1,23V @ 29dB.
This should be plenty for the Denon preamp mode rated at 3.75V
Wondering the same thing. Denon X6700H, running external amps for most channels, but not all. Any idea what the voltage output is when it is not running in full preamp mode?
@@isak6626 You can ask Denon support. But I would guess same as mine, around 3.5V
@@cristiantolbaru7153 Thanks!
My late-70s vintage McIntosh preamp is rated for 250 mV input but my DAC puts out 2V (no volume control on DAC). Would this be an exception to the recommendation for high gain at the preamp stage? If I turn the preamp volume high, won't it clip severely in this case? If so, how do I find the sweet spot (without a test bench)? My amp has continuous gain knobs (per channel).
great video, and it has convinced me to physically move my headphone amp so that i can reach its analog volume control rather than control volume on my streamer's app in DSP before the DAC.
but that still leaves EQ unaddressed. DSP EQ is essentially DSP volume reduction applied selectively across the frequency spectrum, and we now see that increases net noise sent to the amp. given that analog EQ components also come with additional noise and fidelity loss (looking at you, Schiit Loki), plus analog EQ rarely offers as much control as DSP, are we better off accepting the lost S/N that comes with using DSP, or are we better skipping DSP EQ and using analog EQ when possible?
I, like so many others have bought the hot selling WiiM Ultra and are using it as a pre-amp. It's connected to a Emotiva BasX amp. Any thoughts on settings? Components inputs. RCA outputs?
What should you do if your power amp does not have a gain setting ? I currently have a Monolith 7x200 from Monoprice.
Truly insightful, great work Gene and John, more of these please! Really interesting to hear the “red herring” of paper-spec DAC chipsets vs proper hardware architecture. You guys are the BS filter for the marketing material produced by a lot of consumer audio kit!
A Technical subject, Beautifully explained.
I keep hearing RCA connections are 2v. I have 2008 pioneer AV receiver hooked up to an external amplifier. When I look at specs for AV receiver audio section input line sensitivity 335mv and output level 335mv. My external amp has a variable input sensitivity gain knob on the back spec says 350mv to 2.8v. Not many amps have a variable input sensitivity adjustment. Why not it seems to make sense? Can you shed some light on these discrepancies? Correct me if I am wrong but my understanding is to get both full power and dynamic range the amplifier is design to expect a specific input voltage if no input sensitivity adjustment is available. So if the input voltage is below you don't get max power and if the input voltage is above you don't get max dynamic range. What he says in the video sounds correct if you were recording music with microphones, ADC's and such for best signal to noise and sound quality. When playing back music you need to control the volume somewhere and that's usually the voltage level at the source or preamp and not full level always. The amp max performance is at the expected input voltage.
THANK YOU for the video! Now, that's something truly important for our hobby, witch is a matching game!
More on these really essential matters!
Thanks Gene much appreciated!
That's a lot of numbers to explain a simple fact. More gain in the poweramp means more noise...so keep your gain on the last stage as low as possible, more headroom more dynamics less noise
That's what was said at 3:50. I know that sometimes maff is hard, but listening comprehension helps tremendously, in these things. :-)
If your signal voltage from the source is lower than the expected input voltage design of the amplifier you will not get all the power (Watts) from the amp. Making sure both voltages match is the best setup
Recommendation please with Marantz AV8805 WITH PARASOUND A31 and A21 please? With Focal 826v speakers
Perfect timing Gene, i was just going through this exact thing with my DAC levels and amp volume, i had convinced myself that when at full volume my dac was adding brightness to the upper mids, then further convinced myself running it @ -10db was a solution. Sigh haha
There are some fundamentally good points here but ultimately isn’t he just peddling his pre amp?
@jim586 They are passionate about the products they produce and have measurements to back up their performance. Very few companies offer this.
@ I can’t disagree with you there. Maybe I was being I bit mean.
Gene, was that dbSPL produced taking into account human hearing sensitivity? Or was it assuming flat hearing and speaker sensitivity curve ? I see that FFT spike is at 1khz so..for that it shouldn't matter much ?
That’s one of the reasons I run Dac line put and use integrated amp to do volume control.
This video was confusing, could it be summed up in one sentence? I'm assuming the advice is run the signal hot and the amp gain low to minimize noise? I have a receiver so this would only apply to my subwoofer line out where I do the opposite which is run the plate amp hot and then turn the signal down via a -db setting on the receiver, this is to avoid clipping and noise in a subwoofer signal isn't a concern.
40min video to tell you to max the volume/gain as early in the chain as possible. If you run all digital sources it doesn't really matter imo
So i should turn my gain down on my parasound jc5? I was told by parasound to have the gain on the highest.. and how does it effect the power, i asume i have to turn the volume on the pre alot more up go get de same volume. Feel like there is a loss of power if the gain is on low🤷♂️
I have a hifi system. I only have an amplifier, no preamp or external DAC. There's no way to change volume on any other device but the amp. In this case I doubt there's anything to optimize.
simple works best. I donT get all these devices... a DAC? Your amp has a DAC. Pre-amp? Excuse me?
I hear zero noise when running enough gain to drive my speakers to 95+ peaks at my listening position. Even with one of my preamps set to no gain i get no noise on either my old school, Class AB power amp or the Class D power amp. One speaker pair is about 86db efficiency the other old JBL monitors is 89 .... according to their spec sheet. Various settings I've tried add no really noticeable noise. If I had very high efficiency speakers.... say... 102... I would not have to turn the amps up as loud .... so still no real objectionable noise. The real noise i hear is from vinyl records and sometimes a poorly recorded CD. On multiple powered monitors there is a very slight bit of noise from the tweeter but that does not increase at high gain. So.... with even modestly priced audio products today noise is really not a problem.
@@memcdm did you reply to the wrong comment?
@@lgmediapcsalon9440 no
The point? With today's electronic components there are no noise issues. My preamps have no audible noise. Never heard any noise from any of my power amps. Some have no volume controls. No noise in any of my preamps. Set up totally wrong and there's stilll no audible noise even at max spl. Old components did have audible noise and I have heard noise from the tweeters in some lower end powered studio monitors. Some source material is a bit of noise, but even this is rare today. Appreciate the info but I've never had a noise issue with any home stereo equipment. Recording live performances with lower end components reveal some noise and in this case, proper setup is important. Still, given the capabilities of even modestly priced stuff, it's easy to get quiet recordings.
Good topic, I have followed a similar suggestion to lower the digital preamp volume gain of my foobar2000 player from Hans, and that alone improved the sound quality to my hear:
ruclips.net/video/yhwNiCt-Kiw/видео.htmlsi=J1X6boG2UQVYVKfT
Audio Bliss Starts with a powerful clean signal 👌🏽
My PS Audio monoblocks don't have any controls that I can find.
Wouldn’t what the gain any higher on them they are already noisy.
In the first 5 minutes I got bored. Remember back in the day it only a reciever that did it all and an equalizer?
@@scottivlow9962 This is a fact based channel hosted by engineers and other subject matter experts. If that bores you, there are plenty of RUclips channels to watch press release style powder puff reviews with cool camera angles and nifty music.
but but but we have to sell pre-amps, streamers, dsp, special dacs, $10k wires.
He's there peddling his wares... passionate? sure...
@lgmediapcsalon9440 I spent so much money on 3 sets of surround speakers, 9 sets of RCA speaker cables, RCA adapters & connectors and 2 pairs of wall mounts since last September. I also bought islolaion pads for my subwoofer, sound bar and small one on the back of the speakers. I want to eventually add 3D sound islolaion pads on my walls near my speakers.
My grip is with the whole audio industry that has no damn clue that for people that buy any Vizio soundbar can try an up sale on speakers that go far beyond the stock speakers you get from Vizio.
The trick to make it work RCA Y adapters that plug in back of Vizio subwoofers.
I have 2 sets of 3 way speakers and 2 sets of 2 way speakers. I wanted the best of the pros and cons from both types. I have a total of 10 surround speakers now.
I need an Arc / eARC audio extractor and a new HDMI cable.
I have a non functional Vizio soundbar that needs an audio connection to my TV..
I'm already planning out my next upgrade to my Vizio thin and long speaker wire to something shorter and thicker for a better appearance.
Ever spend any time on the forum? It's a cancerous cesspool of audio snobs that are more left leaning than an 80s adult film star's junk.
Have you ever been on their forum?
SNR value is actually a way to cheat about how good it is , the higher the better but they are two different way to get this value higher , most engineer they increase the signal amplitude then you get high SNR value, the Audiophile engineering way is that you decrease the noise floor. Decrease noise demand good engineering. Difficult to approach it. But it is right Audiophile👋👋👋👋👋 engineering 😅