If you're familiar with our product line, you already know that our amplifiers come with volume controls, making the use of a preamp optional. In fact, most of our customers who purchase an amplifier from us are advised not to use a preamp.

This might seem like odd advice coming from a manufacturer who would benefit from another sale, but we only offer honest guidance.

My top priority when selling a customer one of our amplifiers is to ensure it sounds as good as possible—good enough to impress not only the customer but also their friends. Since sound quality depends on the weakest link, my job often involves eliminating as many weak links as possible so you can fully appreciate the quality of our amps.

If a customer already owns a preamp, I advise them to listen to our amp both with and without the preamp. In most cases, the amp will sound much better on its own, and I want customers to experience this. The easiest way to discern this is to listen to the amp directly connected to your CD player, DAC, or phono stage using good interconnects for a few days or weeks. Then, reintroduce the preamp and often you’ll notice that much of the inner detail and clarity has diminished.

This is not true for all amplifiers; our Zen Triode amplifiers are so fast and transparent that relatively few high-end audio components match their quality until you invest significantly more. If you can obtain an amplifier of this caliber for under $700.00 (see our SE84CS) and it sounds great without a preamp, why spend extra on one? Chances are, you won’t find a preamp costing $4500.00 that will not degrade the amplifier's performance.

So, whether a preamp helps or hurts the sound depends on the fidelity of the preamp, the power amp, and the synergy between them. This synergy arises from having components of similar fidelity in the correct order.

It is unlikely that every component in your system will have the same level of fidelity. The goal is to have your components arranged in order of their fidelity. For example, if you have a source, preamp, and power amp, you want the source to be the highest fidelity piece, followed by the preamp, with the amplifier being the next in line. It would be counterproductive to have the amplifier as the best component and the source as the weakest link, as this would limit the fidelity of the preamp and amplifier to that of the source.

A Touch of Background on Decware Preamps

Our original amplifier, the SE84C, was released in 1996, shortly followed by our second product, the ZTPRE. The SE84C is a low-power SET amplifier that appeals to a niche market. To make "Zen magic" accessible to a broader audience, I designed the ZTPRE to be synergistic with both tube and solid-state amplifiers and to complement our Zen Triode amp without compromising its transparency.

These two products were the foundation of Decware, and while both were successful, they were rarely purchased together. The ZTPRE, being a high-end preamp, cost over twice as much as our amp, making it less common for customers to buy both. Despite the noticeable performance improvement when using a ZTPRE with our amplifiers, fewer than 5% of our amplifier owners have experienced this synergy.

Three Types of Preamps

In my view, preamps fall into three basic categories:

Type A: Preamps that are essentially inaudible.
Type B: Preamps that enhance the sound.
Type C: Preamps that degrade the sound.

The ZTPRE was a Type A preamp. We later introduced the ZSLA-1, a Type B preamp designed for systems with high-power amps (solid-state or tube), serving as an alternative to passive preamps. It has no gain and is rarely used with our amplifiers.

Seven years after releasing the ZTPRE, my goal was to create a Type B preamp that would remain effective even with our amplifiers and be suitable for any brand. This preamp needed to be affordable while delivering significant improvements in performance. A high-quality preamp in front of an SE84C, SE84CS, SE34I, or TORII amplifies these amplifiers to a new level, offering at least a 30% improvement in power and dynamics, making it seem like you’ve doubled the power. Many customers who haven’t experienced this upgrade may not realize the potential of their amplifiers.

How Can a Preamp Improve Performance?

A good preamp acts as an extension of the source, enhancing its dynamics and voltage swing, and improving its output impedance to drive challenging power amps more effectively. It can extract hidden details and timbres, add body and weight to the stereo image, and enhance the depth and palpability of the sound stage. It can make small speakers and amplifiers perform as if they were larger and create more layers in the music. It can make recordings sound more like real music than just recordings.

In the case of the SE84C and SE84CS amplifiers, a good preamp can effectively double the perceived power of the amplifier, which might be a more cost-effective way to achieve higher fidelity compared to buying additional amplifiers for more power.