preamp or cdp for better sound

scottyboy76

I have marantz monoblocks through a nice marantz sr8000.

They fuel a set of sda 2bs, without upgrades, or dcm tf 400s.

After visiting jerry j12, and listening to his awesome, expensive tube gear, even over smaller tf 250s, and the sdas he sold me, i could not believe my ears.

He was using an expensive jolida cdp, some badass tube amps, and a smallish pre, cant remember the make.

I want to approach the effortless sound at high volumes i heard that day.

Im pretty much quitting on ht, because we just dont use it that much, and we love the 2 channel setup for music.

I have direct music channels, the sonic tap stuff, also a denon dcm 460 carousel cd player and a lg bd550 bluray, to play cds, not garbage, but nothing like the better stuff, i guess?

Have a decent technics tt, nothing special, but it works as new, and many, many lps from the golden years of rock, late 60s to 90s.

With the smallish budget, even with the intent to sell or trade the marantz rec. and three of the monoblocks, as well as offering a 322 dollar brandsmart gift card, i dont think i will be able to acquire both a quality preamp and a really nice jolida or oppo level cdp.

My questions, first, is a quality pre, paired with two 125 watt ma500u marantz monos going to be a marked improvement over the same marantz monos, paired with the marantz sr8000.

If not im going to concentrate on the quality cdp.

Im hesitant to jump into getting rid of my gear, it took me awhile pouring over cl ads to find smoking deals on quality stuff.

I just dont have the experience many of you guys do, swapping and tweaking components, judging which changes give the best results in general terms.

Any impressions or opinions from personal experience would be very much appreciated.

Thank you

treitz3

Tell Jerry to sell you some of the gear he has. That'll make the biggest improvement on your rig and with your budget. Give him hell until he gives.

thsmith

Get the AVR out of your 2 channel listening and put a 2 channel preamp between your AVR and 2 channel sources.

YMMV

danger boy

every piece of stereo equipment makes a difference in the overall sound quality.. so start with one piece, then add to that till you are satisfied with the sound.

adding two or more pieces of equipment is a bad idea.. you'll never know which piece made the most difference.. get one piece.. listen to it for a few months then add another piece.. it takes time.. but it's a great adventure.

scottyboy76

besides, have you seen that guy treitz, you would not know what a nice guy from just looking.

I dont think i want to harass him about anything.

Maybe if you hold him down, i could run in his new house, grab a few boxes and take off.

Now what, wanna hold jj down.

Seriously, the guy has lots of incredible gear, and its all up for sale or trade, but i dont think he is into my ht stuff i have to trade.

And i believe his stuff is well above my price range, even with trades, but i will give him a ring tonight.

scottyboy76

Thanks for rplying everyone, but im not sure about one response.

I have a so so audiosource preone/a preamp i traded jerry some speakers for.

I have had it hooked to the monos and running sdas.

The source was directv sonictap, and denon cdp.

It was okay, but the marantz rec. sounded better, neither had nearly the detail, quiet background, and easy power of jerrys stuff.
I understand he has very expensive gear, but i really think a higher quality pre, and or a jolida or oppo cdp would get me much closer.

megasat16

What you are trying to achieve requires many upgrades. You can start your upgrades from the CDP or anything you want. You'll hear a marked improvement everytime you upgrade.

But if you want to spend your money for the most improvement out of your rig as it stands, get a nice preamp first. Your marantz amps are mainly marketed for the surround sound at one time even though they are monoblocs. I am not a fan of them either.

ben62670

Get a nice tubed pre first. Then get a good DAC or CDP.

Obsession18

I added a Jolida JD-100 CD player to my system and it made a significant difference, and I'm using a Pioneer Elite as a pre/pro feeding a Parasound amp. The great thing about the Jolida is you can tube roll and improve things even more (I'm still using the stock tubes). Eventually I will add a dedicated preamp with a HT bypass, but for now my Linbrook Signiture Systems are sounding pretty sweet.

I purchased my CD player from Jolida.net, great buying experience, they are $649.

ben62670

Wait till you get some better tubes. I do not understand why they even ship a nice CDP with those tubes. Hopefully someone will chime in and recommend some decent tubes. Also you can use the search function

leroyjr1

Obsession18 wrote: »

I added a Jolida JD-100 CD player to my system and it made a significant difference, and I'm using a Pioneer Elite as a pre/pro feeding a Parasound amp. The great thing about the Jolida is you can tube roll and improve things even more (I'm still using the stock tubes). Eventually I will add a dedicated preamp with a HT bypass, but for now my Linbrook Signiture Systems are sounding pretty sweet.

I purchased my CD player from Jolida.net, great buying experience, they are $649.

Jolida cdp is only $559

http://jolida.net/hotdeals.htm

Gulfstrings

"My questions, first, is a quality pre, paired with two 125 watt ma500u marantz monos going to be a marked improvement over the same marantz monos, paired with the marantz sr8000.

If not im going to concentrate on the quality cdp."

Maybe this will help a little ... I had to choose between two "good" CDPs to use in my primary system. Both are single disc players, one an Onkyo DX7555 the other a Marantz CD5003. Ultimately, I had to do an apple-to-apple and allow the players to "speak for themselves." In other words, bypass the AVR processor (used as a pre). Both sounded much better. The "pre" just couldn't reproduce as well as either player could via analog.

So, if I've understand one of your considered options correctly, my suggestion would be to score a good CDP and let its processors do their thing. BTW, the Onkyo CDP won out in my comparison but the Marantz is doing it thing in the next room.

tonyb

ben62670 wrote: »

Get a nice tubed pre first. Then get a good DAC or CDP.

Agree here, alot of members have a tubed pre with SS amps and are pleased with the results. Also agree with the one piece at a time theory but would also add an upgrade to your cables in the mix. If cdp's are up your alley, plenty of good used ones on the market for cheap, since alot of people have been going the downloaded music route. Which if you think you may do that, the dac is more important than a cdp, and can be used with both a cdp and computer for music. So I guess I would vote for a tubed pre first, then a dac, then cables, and if you still want,a good used cdp in that order.

scottyboy76

i appreciate the advice, i sorta feel the same, as far as a dac or cdp to start.

I mean the marantz rec. and monos are not terrible, but my sources are severely lacking.

Im going to check out exactly what a dac is, and if it would be more appropriate for me.

If anyone has one for sale please post it, i will check it out on fs.

By the way, i always thought downloads are the worst sound quality out there.

admittedly i know nothing about the tech of it all, if there are quality sources avalable without breaking the bank, please let me know.

Hawkeye

It all starts at the source! While I have resisted Jesse's recommendation to go SACD, I've found my source (dac/transport) to have had the most impact on the sound.

Gordon

george daniel

yep,, source,,yep.

phipiper10

Throw me in the tubed pre category.

Obsession18

ben62670 wrote: »

Wait till you get some better tubes. I do not understand why they even ship a nice CDP with those tubes. Hopefully someone will chime in and recommend some decent tubes. Also you can use the search function

You were quite correct about better tubes!

I put some Psvane 12AX7 grade A tubes in my Jolida JD-100 last Friday and left the player on continuos play all weekend to burn them in.

Monday night it was time to see what they could do, what a difference - tighter better controlled bass, improved detail in the highs, and alot blacker background, worth every penny!

If you own a Jolida - GET RID of the stock tubes!

steveinaz

My observations with over 35 yrs in this hobby:

1. Simplicity-as few components as possible, get the electronics and excess cables out of the way.
2. Speakers, speakers, speakers-if the speakers aren't right, nothing else EVER will be.
3. Buy components in the "sweet spot" of performance/cost, unless of course you have money falling out of your ****.
4. Cable selection and management-They don't have to be rediculously expensive, just good sound engineering, and properly routed.
5. Quality vs quantity--always pick quality over quantity.
6. Placement/room acoustics-self explanatory. Experiment with speaker placement; it makes a huge difference.
7. Except for patterns of troubles or issues, pretty much IGNORE other peoples opinions of individual pieces of equipment. People tend to over-hype, both in the positive and negative realms.
8. If you still find yourself chasing your tail, see #2.

In the speakers vs source debate, speakers win everytime in my opinion; and I've learned this lesson time and time again throughout my audio journey. . Want proof? Take a $29 DVD player as your source and run it through a set of $5000 speakers. Now take a $5000 CD player and run it through $29 speakers (or, what the heck, $800 speakers)--wanna guess which system comes out on top? Of course you want a good source, no doubt, but the focus of your budget should be the speakers---

Conradicles

Very well said Steve!

steveinaz

My recent setup has been pretty much the same for the last 8 years. The only thing that has changed (essentially) are my speakers---and what a difference. My base system went from sounding like ****, to rising to what I thought it was always capable of just by changing up speakers; I'm glad I stuck with my base components, with hindsight. I live pretty far away from any "real" audio that I can audition, so I have to rely on research and LUCK for the most part--and alot of trial and error; unfortunately trial and error gets expensive as it is difficult to locally sell used hi-fi. The progression looked like this:

Pinnacle Classic Gold Towers-->Athena AS-F2-->Energy Connoisseur C-9-->Fritz Carbon 7

Ironically, if I rated the above from BEST to worst (1 being best):
1. Fritz ($1750. One of the best speakers I've owned in 35yrs)
2. Pinnacle ($1000. Damn nice speaker with hindsight. Smooth treble, nice mids, incredible bass)
3. Energy ($1300. Fairly solid, but too "HT" sounding. Strident midrange, but smooth treble. Bass was too resonate sounding)
4. Athena ($600. Good bass, way too much treble--I'll just say it, they were awful.)

Obsession18

Steve,

You are absolutely correct about speakers making the biggest difference. The improvement in sound quality going from my Polk RTi10's to my Tyler Acoustic Linbrook Signature System's was huge. I did see an improvement going from a run of the mill blue ray player to the Jolida JD-100 CD player, but it was no where near the improvement the speaker upgrade provided.

Hawkeye

While I'd agree in principle that speakers have the largest impact, Scottyboy asked about a cdp or pre. He does have a pair of SDA's so there probably won't be a change there.

I'd still go with the source!!

Gordon