Preamp advice?

apples60

Good morning. I was looking for oppinions about a Yamaha ca1000 preamp.Im Currently running a Yamaha AV RX 840 and Yamaha M-80 driving a set of SDA 1c's, and two Harmon Kardon Citation 22's driving a set of Monitor 10a's and a set of SDA CRS's with the dual mid's in them.Also curious about the vintage Marantz preamps like the 1060 or 3200. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

tonyb

You might get more responses if you move this to the 2 channel section.

mhardy6647

The CA-1000 was of course an integrated amplifier... a pretty darned good one, in fact. I don't own one, but my guess is that the preamp part is on the good side of mediocre. Probably not up to the performance level of a standalone preamp of its day (ca. 1976). It does have a switch to separate the pre and power sections. PS that switch gets dirty over the years, with some interesting side-effects. Just clean it with DeOxit (if it hasn't been already).

Better than average phono section in those Yamaha integrateds, IMO.

The power amp section is also pretty good (i.e., not to be redundant, but the CA-1000 and its kin were pretty darned good integrated amps, even by modern standards, I'd opine)... 'specially in Class A if you can stand the heat and have sensitive-enough loudspeakers to use it in Class A.

PS Though I don't have a CA-1000, I do have a CA-800 (next model down) and a CA-2010 (TOTL integrated of the next model cycle), so I am not just foaming at the mouth ;-)


The OP also asked about the Marantz 1060. Couple of those here, but I haven't really played with them too much. They do have a pretty good reputation (i.e., even the preamp section), though.

marvda1

i have the matching citation 21 preamp that you might be able to talk me out of.