Pacific owners - use preamp or not?

[Zappadaddy]

I am obtaining Pacific with volume reg. and like to ask people who owns it if you use preamp or not. If you use preamp what brand and why.

 

[micha b.]

I use of course a Preamp (ARC Ref 40)….in my opinion you need for sure a very good preamp to top the volume control in the Pacific or Horizon…but then you have more powerful mids, more “strength“…and maybe a loss of some tiny details

 

[Zappadaddy]

No one else using preapmp with Pacific?

 

[dbeau]

No one else using preapmp with Pacific?

Pacific 2 using D Agostinno's Krell Evolution 202 and seperate power supply = very happy

 

[keithc]

I use the Pacific as both a pre-amp and source selector for vinyl.

 

[2ndLiner]

I have a Pac2 with a Conrad Johnson GAT2 preamp. The combination yields more body, greater natural sounding instrument/vocal tonality, and more emotional engagement than using the Pac2 alone. BTW, I had a “shootout” with the GAT2, an ARC Ref10, and a VAC Master. While all had their strengths the GAT2 clearly delivers a more emotionally involving listening experience. Would love to hear CJ’s ART 88 one day!

 

[christoph]

Pacific 2 using D Agostinno's Krell Evolution 202 and seperate power supply = very happy

Have you actually tried without preamp?

 

[Zappadaddy]

I have bought Pacific version from 2020 balanced with vol.reg. beacause of the impedance mismatch it was not listenable, when I inserted preamp NAT Magnetic real music started to coming out of the source, incredible and emotional, I could not stay still, it made me sit-dance. Magnetis is on loan only and I feel it is not the end of the game preamp. How about Allni 7000 pre? Anyone has an experience?

 

[dbeau]

Have you actually tried without preamp?

My Pacific2 does not have VC

 

[christoph]

My Pacific2 does not have VC

Difficult then

 

[Anyoldears]

I am interested in this question too. It seems the answer is yes you can beat the VC/preamp in the Pac but at what cost?

The Luxman c900u is coming down in price, but does it beat the internal? Same for the well regarded Holo Serene KTE. How about the Coda 07x or the Benchmark LA4?

If you need to spend 20k on a CJ GAT2 to improve, you may as well trade up to a Horizon! So is there a Goldilocks zone where a decent cheap, probably 2ndhand preamp offers vfm improvement?

 

[lordcloud]

I have a balanced Pacific 2 and I use a Goldpoint SAX2M that I had modified at Timbre Audio with his silver wire, and he removed the PCB and wired directly to the XLRs.

In my system, and even before the modifications, I preferred the Gold point.

 

[Anyoldears]

I have a balanced Pacific 2 and I use a Goldpoint SAX2M that I had modified at Timbre Audio with his silver wire, and he removed the PCB and wired directly to the XLRs.

In my system, and even before the modifications, I preferred the Gold point.

Thx thats just the sort of thing I was looking for. Was it much different, or barely anything?

 

[lordcloud]

Thx thats just the sort of thing I was looking for. Was it much different, or barely anything?

To my ears and in my system, the difference was noticeable.

Straight from the Pacific, the sound was a bit lighter and more diffuse. Less solid. More ethereal.

I can so some people preferring either sound. Though to me, with the preamp in the system, it just sounded more real.

 

[geetee1972]

I will add a thought here based on my experience of both the Golden Gate and the Horizon, but not the Pacific. Whether the addition of a pre-amp makes a positive difference or not depends very much on the power amplifer. I have 20w SET amps, so jucier than a typicaly flea powered SET but still quite feeble compared to say the 530w a friend's Heisenbergs put out into 8ohms (and they double up to 2ohm).

In my system, even the Horizon sounds significantly better with my pre-amp in place versus just using the VC on the DAC. Admitedly the difference between using a bare Horizon versus a bare GG was also quite substantial, but there was no way I would want to remove my pre-amp from my system were I to ever buy the Horizon.

In my friend's system, built around the monstrously capable SS Heisenbergs, the difference was nothing like as obvious. I believe he ran the Horizon for a long time without the matching Stern pre-amp in place and was perfectly happy until he reconnected the Stern. Only then did he beging to notice the subtle improvement it made. It made enough of a difference that he resolved to always keep it in, but in his words, it wasn't as much of a difference as to compell you to buy into the Stern as part of a system build if starting from scratch.

The caveat I would add to all this is that my pre-amp is really rather special. It is a Concert Fidelity CF-080SLX; it's right up there with the best pre-amps available (I was very lucky to buy an older ex-demo model from the UK distributor for a quarter of the new price), so the difference I'm experiencing might not be so apparent with a more modest pre-amp.

So in summary, I think the addition of a pre between a Lampi and power amps really depends firstly on the power amps you're using and then secondly the quality of the pre.

 

[lordcloud]

I am obtaining Pacific with volume reg. and like to ask people who owns it if you use preamp or not. If you use preamp what brand and why.

Ok, so I am currently running my Pacific 2 straight into my amps, using the onboard volume control. The last time I did it, my system wasn't as revealing as it is today.

I think this is what I'll be running for a while, as I hear no degradation in sound. In fact, I may hear a little more immediacy and detail.

I'll swap back in a couple weeks. But as of right now, I'm liking it a lot.

 

[lordcloud]

I've had my Pacific 2 going straight into my amps for a few weeks now. During that time I've swapped back and forth between the DAC and preamp (modified Goldpoint dual mono passive) into my amps (Atmasphere M60 3.3s).

For digital I'll be sticking to the DAC straight into my amps.

There's an amount of "life" that seems to be lost when I add the preamp in. The sound becomes seemingly more refined, calm, and controlled with the preamp in. But also smaller and noticeably less expressive. In this instance, calm is a negative.

For me, having effectively two volume controls in the system is sonically noticeable and deleterious.

Thanks @Zappadaddy for posing the question, prompting me to explore it again.

 

[TKK]

To my ears and in my system, the difference was noticeable.

Straight from the Pacific, the sound was a bit lighter and more diffuse. Less solid. More ethereal.

I can so some people preferring either sound. Though to me, with the preamp in the system, it just sounded more real.

It is exactly how my experience was. Without the preamp, Pacific sounds lighter and more diffuse. Adding a preamp brings the density to the sound. It also kind of depends on the power amp too.

 

[godofwealth]

I am obtaining Pacific with volume reg. and like to ask people who owns it if you use preamp or not. If you use preamp what brand and why.

I have the original Pacific sans volume control. 40 years of experience with digital and DACs has led me to not prefer DACs with volume controls, although they are certainly convenient, and these days, by default, all DACs (almost) come with some form of VC. Of course, the primary issue is whether digital is your only source. In my case, it decidedly is not, so VC with the Pacific (or Horizon 360) would be a non-starter. I use a ARC Ref 6SE for tube, and a Mola Mola Makua for solid state preamps. Can't do without them for switching between sources. Of course, you get a limited type of preamp functionality with the Pacific 2 (or Horizon), but that's really a dumbed down preamp. Serious preamps offer a lot more than switching 7-8 sources, they offer gain matching, phase reversal, mono, etc. In the case of my Makua, I also get the flexibility of routing the phono (or digital DAC) to any input, so they preamp is highly customizable in many ways. I don't think Lampi DACs can touch that. Of course, none of this matters if you only listen to digital streaming. Then a DAC with VC may be all you need.

Some of the early DACs with VC I have used are the dCS Elgar Plus about 30 years ago, and while you gain in some sonic purity, in comparison with a state of the art tube preamp (then I was using the original ARC Ref preamp), my general impression was that someone had just deflated the soundstage entirely. Through the DAC + VC, it was much less dynamic and involving. That remains my impression till today. So, if you want the absolute best in sonics, preamps are necessary IMHO. Of course, multiple sources with flexibility for gain matching etc. makes it mandatory.