I'm not sure anyone is talking about fidelity to the source *before* the cd is burnt - that's pretty close to a pointless discussion. We're talking about replay here, replay of recorded music (both live and studio-based).
I really don't like taking sides in this age-old passive vs. active debate, but the engineering side is pretty clear. An active device in a replay chain is going to degrade your signal. Whether you can hear it, most of the time probably not, some people prefer the pumped-up sound of active pre amplification and that's totally fair and fine. It's just there's a lot of crap talked about passives, and the bottom line is that if you match your kit carefully, they are often a very cheap, and very very transparent solution. It is entirely conceivable that $5k of kit will sound rubbish with a passive if it's not a good match. Price isn't a great indicator very often. The SB3 seems to have enough juice to drive through a passive pre imo and that's what counts here. It's really about how much voltage your source unit kicks out, keeping the connections short and low capacitance, and having a power amp that can be fully driven without a nuclear reactor-type load. For most home users, all of that is very achievable and a passive unit will slug neatly in without any effect on the signal whatsoever, apart from a small voltage drop. FWIW I've used both types of pre and have been happy with either option tbh, it's just the Creek suits my set-up great at the moment. -- GeeZa ------------------------------------------------------------------------ GeeZa's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5563 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=25614 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
