Swara preamp and Poweramp. DAC was their top of the thiyaga dac. Speakers were a new, yet to be launched towers, still undergoing testing.
MaSh
Acoustic Portrait - Swara – Tube Preamp
- Thread starter MaSh
- Start date
MaSh
the boy is soon gonna have many portraits on his table
the boy is soon gonna have many portraits on his table
Ha ha ha if I can get half of what I heard in their setup, in my home, I will be a very happy 'Boy'.
As you're blown away by the AP setup, I'd suggest you to replicate the entire chain in your place to check if you get the same feeling. I doubt just adding their preamp or poweramp or DAC to your existing setup will make the same impact.
I agree and I am not even intending to replicate the same performance. Primary reason being, i do not have the budget to acquire rest of the components. It could be a goal, who knows.
I needed a preamp for my setup and I guess the AP preamp seems to be the best one in my budget.
MaSh
hifitoaster
Well-Known Member
including the room !!
just kidding.square_wave, 'Low gain power amp' : you mean low output power amp? . Thank you.
Would anyone have an idea whether the AP Swara tube pre will pair well with Parasound A21 power amp? I am looking for a tube preamplifier to go with the Parasound power amp. My speakers are Monitor Audio 500 towers. Thanks in advance.
square_wave
Well-Known Member
The usual ( technical ) thing to look for with pre / power is impedance match. You want the amp to have an input impedance at least 10x the output impedance of the preamp. 20 x even better ! Please check with AP for the output impedance of the preamp.
Gain is usually not an issue unless you use a very high gain and powerful pre / power with very sensitive speakers. In such cases you won't get much headroom to play with before you reach very high volume levels.
Impedance Question?
OK so I know there's a lot of threads about matching impedance with pre/amp. It would be really nice if someone could help out here! The whole impedanc...
There are power amps which by design are high gain. Meaning, they reach clipping point faster than a low gain design. However, I agree that it is the preamplifier which controls gain in most circumstances.
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Low gain power amp examples: First Watt F5 or F5 Turbo version 2 which are both 20 dB whereas their power outputs are 25W and 50W.
Typical power amp gain is 26-28 dB. Some go as high as 32 dB. And these amps could be anything - a 2W DHT SET amp or 150W solid state amp. Gain and power output are not related. One only needs to ensure that the preamp stage has sufficient gain if one chooses to use a low gain power amp so that there is sufficient SPL from the speakers.
Since you are based in Bangalore, ask AP if a home demo is possible.
This would be the best way to form an opinion.
Cheers,
Raghu
Where in Bangalore are you located? If anywhere close to Whitefield, you could come over anytime next week. I should have my AP Preamp by then.
MaSh
Thanks MaSh for the invite! I am located near Hennur. I will PM you for your location.
Mayank Shah
Well-Known Member
Hi, MaSh, nice to hear about your trip at AP. Would they be accomodating to arrange for a listen to the pre and mono blocks? How did their Poweramp sound? Thanks.
Yes I don't think they should have any problems. They have a great setup there to audition.
MaSh
I had AP tube pre and entry-level power amp driving AP MS101 Bookshelves initially and then the Cadence Aristas. A bunch of us FMs got together once at my home to compare AP with Lyrita DHT tube pre belonging to Srinisundar: Rajiv, Srini & MdNaseer. Lyrita sounded marginally better to our ears where mids had a better bloom. Having said that, AP pre-power combo work well as a pair.
Mayank Shah
Well-Known Member
Was in touch with them, they even offered to send the products to my place for an audition. Super!
It's been a few weeks since I have had the AP Pre with me. So here are my brief impressions.
For those short on time: It's Fantastic.
For the rest, few more words. The Pre is driving the Discrete dynamics Poweramp. The combination seems to work well. So the end result could be a combination of both components. A Huge improvement in every frequency range. The speakers which I always assumed to have hardly any bass, were rocking the whole house. The highs opened up quite a bit, a lot post burn in which took almost 2 weeks of my usage. No idea about hours, I was not timing it.
My previous amp which was peeceebee v4 was also a very good amp, however at 50w they did not get as friendly with the speakers as the DD did. Unfortunately I did not have the AP then. So not sure how the v4 would have reacted with it.
V4 I found was excellent for vocals and precise bass. DD amp is V4 with a hot chilli tadka. The whole frequency range is laid out. Both great amps, pick the one that suits your tastes. I'll try to pen down more on them probably in a separate thread. Both deserve a thread of their own.
Regarding the AP pre it's a definite, rather a Must try. Anyone looking for a super simple, no nonsense, quality pre should check it out. Mind you it's not perfect, imperfections are mostly in usability and minor things, work wise it's spot on.
Hope I made some sense.
MaSh
For those short on time: It's Fantastic.
For the rest, few more words. The Pre is driving the Discrete dynamics Poweramp. The combination seems to work well. So the end result could be a combination of both components. A Huge improvement in every frequency range. The speakers which I always assumed to have hardly any bass, were rocking the whole house. The highs opened up quite a bit, a lot post burn in which took almost 2 weeks of my usage. No idea about hours, I was not timing it.
My previous amp which was peeceebee v4 was also a very good amp, however at 50w they did not get as friendly with the speakers as the DD did. Unfortunately I did not have the AP then. So not sure how the v4 would have reacted with it.
V4 I found was excellent for vocals and precise bass. DD amp is V4 with a hot chilli tadka. The whole frequency range is laid out. Both great amps, pick the one that suits your tastes. I'll try to pen down more on them probably in a separate thread. Both deserve a thread of their own.
Regarding the AP pre it's a definite, rather a Must try. Anyone looking for a super simple, no nonsense, quality pre should check it out. Mind you it's not perfect, imperfections are mostly in usability and minor things, work wise it's spot on.
Hope I made some sense.
MaSh
I had a chance to hear the new offerings last week and was a really good experience. For those getting into audio and who love good music the AP pre/power/speaker Combo s is one really synergized combination to go for to work with their source. Since many of the posts here are about components synergy issues, this is one way to take care of that especially if you are of the mindset of hearing good music and not caring for the cycle of upgrades !
I had gone to hear their new DAC and that has the resolution dynamics and musicality in the league of usual suspects maybe 3-4 times the price.
I had gone to hear their new DAC and that has the resolution dynamics and musicality in the league of usual suspects maybe 3-4 times the price.
Get the Wharfedale EVO 4.2 3-Way Standmount Speakers at a Special Offer Price.
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