What Is a Preamp, and Do I Actually Want One?

Each audio system requires amplification. In a conventional hi-fi set-up, the loudspeakers are all the time “passive”—which is to say, they don’t produce their very own energy. As an alternative, they have to obtain an amplified audio sign from an exterior supply, aptly known as an amplifier, with the intention to do their factor. Even in a extra trendy, self-contained audio system (just like the Sonos Period 100, for instance), the drivers that produce the sound should be amplified with the intention to perform—this simply all occurs in a singular field moderately than throughout hi-fi separates.

However in case you’ve heard about amplifiers, you could have additionally heard about preamplifiers (sometimes called “preamps”) and puzzled the place they match into an audio system, and whether or not you want one. Let’s reply these questions, lets?

What Does a Preamp Do?

An audio sign wants loads of consideration earlier than it’s able to be amplified—so finally the query “what does a preamp do?” broadly incorporates its personal reply. A preamplifier takes care of all the pieces that must be completed earlier than the audio sign (despatched from the music supply) is amplified and despatched onwards to the system’s audio system.

In a self-contained audio system just like the Sonos speaker, the preamplifier and the amplifier are in the identical enclosure, together with the speaker drivers that really ship the sound. Even in a extra refined hi-fi separates setup, the preamplifier a part of proceedings continues to be usually dealt with out of sight, inside the amplifier. Some of these amps are often known as “built-in amplifiers” and comprise each preamp and amplifier performance.

Nevertheless, some folks favor to separate out this performance, which is when chances are you’ll come throughout a preamplifier as its personal piece of apparatus, paired with an influence amplifier. In these circumstances, the preamplifier permits you to choose the supply of music you’d like to listen to (the bulk have a collection of enter choices with the intention to assist a system with a number of sources), and in addition set and modify the quantity.

The preamp additionally ensures the audio sign is at “line stage”—that’s, the usual voltage energy of an audio sign transmitted between elements—and sends it on to be amplified, able to be moved onwards, lastly, to the audio system.

Does an Exterior Preamp Enhance Sound High quality?

Hello-fi orthodoxy says that particular person features in any system must be saved as separate as potential if the most effective outcomes are to be achieved. The pondering goes that, by retaining electrical exercise as shielded and self-contained as potential, the audio sign has the most effective shot at remaining as pure and uncolored as potential.

By dividing the preamplifier and the amplifier features into separate bins, there must be a discount in electrical noise and interference across the sign in comparison with having all of it crammed right into a single field.