A little background: I have been a happy squeezebox owner since the beginning of this year. I have it hooked up to a NAD HT receiver and Kef front speakers. The centre & rear speakers are Magnat, no sub (yet).
A few days ago I had to send my NAD HT receiver out for repairs (something in the video circuitry broke, so I'm assuming the repairs won't influence the following). Since it will be out several weeks I hooked up the NAD C320 integrated amp from my office system for the time being... and was rather surprised by the result. I don't know enough flowery audiophile language to describe the difference, but it was a lot more detailed and open. I already knew that my receiver does an analog-to-digital conversion internally for volume control etc., because it has no "bypass" or "analog direct" options. I always assumed that using a brand like NAD would mean that the sound would not be influenced much, especially since the sound had already improved a lot compared to my old HT receiver, a budget line Pioneer. So for now I'm assuming that my HT receiver has a negative effect on sound quality for analog sources; I will test this assumption when it comes back from the shop. Perhaps this also explains why I did not hear much improvement when I tried a Musical Fidelity DAC that I borrowed from a friend a while back. Sorry for the rambling so far, there is actually a question in all this. My HT receiver has pre-out connections for all channels, so I could imagine a setup like this: - multi-channel sources hooked up to my HT receiver - front L/R pre-out of the receiver going to a 2-channel amp or pre-amp - analog sources (SB primarily) connected to the 2-channel amp - front L/R speakers amplified by the 2-channel amp, C+surround by the HT receiver My first question would be: is this feasable? It looks good to me, but is it a common solution for seasoned 'philes and just something I stumbled upon, or is this a case of good theory/bad practice? My other question: leveling all output channels could be a hassle and explaining to my spouse which volume knob should be used for what source even more. I've found a few pre-amps that have a volume bypass option (like the 'Parasound 2100' (http://www.parasound.com/nc/2100.php) or the 'CI Audio PLC-1' (http://www.ciaudio.com/)). Looks like the ticket to me... is it? -- teejay ------------------------------------------------------------------------ teejay's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9349 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=39320 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
