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Tubes and DSP


Carlosrs

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Hello, I have been curious about the miniDSP with Dirac live, but I am hesitant to incorporate an analog-digital-analog conversion after my tube preamp. Logically it should eliminate the use of the tubes and it's goodness🤔.

 

I know there is a question somewhere in there??? Minidsp after tubes: yes or no??

 

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My system is Source, DAC, MiniDSP 88A, Tube Amp for HS, SS amp for LF.  The DSP is the volume control.  Running in a 4 way active with a powered sub.  Turntable pre is connected directly to 2 of the 88A inputs and controlled by the mixer in the 88A.

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Nice setup!! You have a DAC and a turntable going in analog to your 88A, so you your 88a is essentially your preamp and DAC. 

 

I have tubes on my Sunfire Tube preamp, and the dsp goes after that, then into a Sunfire 300 Two SS amp. Do you think it will add its own digital color after my tubes or is it very transparent??

 

I love my sound now but would like to do some room correction if it does not negatively affect my sound.

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Since I went fully active, I have not used the room correction in the 88A.  I have just used REW and found my crossovers and PEQ's, put those into the 88A and am running with that.  The nice thing with the 88A is that there are different configurations you can store and run to compare setups with.  If you haven't purchased a product yet, you may want to wait until they announce more products that run the 2.0 version of the DIRAC.  Be sure you read and understand the product application notes for the various products.  It is not alway immediately obvious how they work.

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    I am also using a MiniDSP with tubes upstream and down.   I am running a Musical Paradise P-307 (Tube preamp & phono stage for R2R and TT) into a MiniDSP 4x10HD.   With the MiniDSP acting as the crossover, the signal then goes to a Bob Latino ST-70 (~35wpc PP EL34) for the HF, a Dayton Audio APA150 (150wpc class A/B SS) for the LF, and a Yamaha P2200 (340W class A/B SS) for the sub.

   I love the tube sound and don't think that using a digital crossover takes away from it at all.  In the future, I will probably move that ST-70 from the HF section down the the LF section and use a low-powered tube amp (either SET or OTL) for the HF section for even more tubey goodness.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I pulled my preamp after temporarily hooking up my phono pre directly to my Minidsp HD when I had the preamp out to change tubes.  The absolute lack of any kind of noise was stunning.  I put the preamp back in for about a week before I pulled it again.  I'm running Volti-modded Khorns so it doesn't take much line nose for it to become audible.  I do get the feeling that the Minidsp is doing some aggressive noise reduction however and that concerns me about the high frequency fidelity.

 

Since so many of you are running a similar setup, what are your feelings?

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And by many, I mean just you @LTusler, lol.  I think I'm headed in a similar direction you are.  I originally got the minidsp HD to ad a bit of eq to my system with the thought of getting another one and triamping the khorns at some point.  I'm nearing that point, but I should probably give REW a shot first and I'm wondering if rather than a second minidsp HD, I should go for something like the 88A.  

 

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On 4/13/2019 at 9:28 AM, Carlosrs said:

Hello, I have been curious about the miniDSP with Dirac live, but I am hesitant to incorporate an analog-digital-analog conversion after my tube preamp. Logically it should eliminate the use of the tubes and it's goodness🤔.

 

I know there is a question somewhere in there??? Minidsp after tubes: yes or no??

 

 

The biggest difficulty  with many tube preamps is a high output impedance, then feeding the low (10kohm) input impedance of the minidsp. This would usually cause a huge rolloff in the bass. You could find a buffer to remedy that, but you should be aware of it.

 

Bruce

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Never tried a analog preamp in the system, I guess one could call the MiniDSP a digital preamp.

 

Godataloss if you haven't already, I would recommend you read ChrisA's DSP posts here in the community.  It may help you decide which way to go regarding a DSP for your system.

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