Preamps

Amplifiers serve a great purpose in the enhancement of sound and audio quality. But when it comes to high-end sound quality, amplifiers need help once in a while. And preamps can provide this further assistance that any amplifier needs. But what exactly is a preamp?

A preamp is actually a shortcut term for a preamplifier. In general, the preamp is still an electronic amplifier. But because this amplifier comes before another amplifier in the system, then it automatically becomes a preamp. Furthermore, this is because the preamp serves the purpose of preparing electronic signals for amplification by the next amplifier in the system. Thus, the reason for it being called a preamp.

You may think that the preamp does not really serve that much of a purpose, but this is the very opposite of what’s true. This is because the preamp acts as the command center of your whole stereo system. Think about it: all components of your stereo system are plugged into your preamp. This indicates that all components go through the management of your preamp itself. It is actually the preamp that chooses whatever source that from the many that have been plugged into your system. The electrical signal is pegged out from the source, and ultimately becomes that which you can hear blasting from your speakers. You can definitely say that the preamp is the navigator of your system.

And this is not just the function of the preamp. Aside from this, preamps actually do the buffering for your system. And if you have a turntable preamp, you can also use this to increase the low signals from your turntable. Turntables are quite old already, and it is quite inevitable that the signals they would give off would be low. So, the turntable preamp can be used to give the signals the much-needed boost.

So, are there kinds of preamps? As a matter of fact, there are actually four kinds of preamps that you can choose from. And all of these types are out in the market already. The first type is the line-stage preamp. Line-stage preamps are actually used for signals that come from line-level sources. By these sources, we mean the usual suspects, such as tape decks, radio tuners, and CD players. The main distinguishing factor here is that any audio signal source, aside from the good ol’ turntable, is actually a line-level source. And the line-stage preamp is used to handle these sources.

The next type of preamp is the phono-stage. A phono preamp is used with the line-stage preamp. In fact, the phono preamp cannot really function much without the line-stage preamp. And the main purpose of this preamp is to boost the minute signals produced by the needle or stylus of the turntable. The next kind of preamp is the audio/video preamp. Now, this is one of the modern stereo preamplifiers. The audio/video preamp regulates the many audio channels for your system. What’s more, this preamp is commonly termed as the home theater controller. This is because the preamp regulates Surround Sound decoding for signals that are Dolby Digital, DTS, or THX, which come from the typical DVD player.

The last kind of preamp is the passive level control. This kind of preamp is just about the most basic of all kinds. All it does is actually regulate circuitry between music and your listening ears, and this is at the very smallest amount as well. Because only a small amount of circuitry is processed, it is important that the music signal not be reduced, hampered, or degraded in any way. There is actually no electricity needed for this preamp. Just make sure that the source of the signal is strong enough in terms of output voltage. In fact, the signal should be strong enough to boost power amplifiers.