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The Music First Audio passive preamplifier was conceived to position itself at the very heart of a true high-end hi-fi system. A preamplifier’s role is relatively simple, it provides for source selection (recordings and transmissions of all types ) and enables the listener to adjust volume level. Simple. The design of Music First Audio preamplifiers is remarkably simple, and the audible benefits are demonstrable. One of our most respected innovators of audio design once said that, ideally, an amplifier should be little more than “a straight wire with gain” and we like to think our products aspire more closely to this objective than any other preamplifier.
Basically, there are two types of preamplifier; active and passive. Historically active preamplifiers tackled the problem of wildly different output levels from source components, particularly vinyl systems which demanded additional ‘boosting’ with active electronics. However, times change, and these issues have now largely been addressed in different ways.
Active and passive preamplifiers work in different ways. All active electronics generate noise or colouration, sometimes it’s not readily detected but it’s there. In the most sophisticated active circuits additional components can be introduced to ameliorate these problems, but that just adds to the cost. More than this, the performance of active electronics are very much dependant on the quality of their power supply so that also has a significant influence on cost.
To be fair, despite commendable efforts, we’ll be first to accept that a few early passive preamplifiers were equally, but differently compromised in their performance capabilities which is why it’s vitally important for us to state that Music First Audio products bear no relationship nor have any history with those early designs. Music First Audio passive preamplifiers are the products of twenty-first century thinking. Having said that, our preamplifiers do owe their heritage to our parent company, Stevens & Billington, who, for more than twenty years have successfully designed and manufactured superior quality transformers for some of world’s leading audio brands.
Just like you, we’re serious music lovers and hi-fi enthusiasts so it was almost inevitable that we should set ourselves the task of designing a truly outstanding preamplifier, at the heart of which would be our ultimate transformer. After months of research and experiment we launched the TX101, our supreme achievement. But we didn’t stop there, soon after that followed a version, the TX102, with multiple outputs that could be wired to a volume control of the highest quality. To reach this stage had involved further research, many revisions and, most importantly, hundreds of hours of listening tests. The passive magnetic preamplifier was born.
By using a transformer instead of resistors consigns to history any resistance to passive preamplification, all prejudices overturned, all orthodoxy defeated. Fresh thinking has created our Transformer Volume Control (TVC), the quintessential solution to preamplification and signal attenuation. The Music First Audio passive preamplifier accepts both balanced and unbalanced inputs and any combination as required. Our preamplifier’s utter transparency ensures its compatibility with almost any hi-fi system within which it will improve the quality of sound reproduction as well as your enjoyment.
We can state with absolute confidence, as well as much shared experience, that Music First Audio preamplifiers offer at the very least, a level of performance comparable with the world’s most expensive preamplifiers, but at a fraction of the cost.
Our preamplifier has been reviewed in almost every high-end hi-fi publication and generated an unprecedented level of critical acclaim. As testimony to the success of the design, many hi-fi equipment reviewers who have heard a Music First Audio preamplifier have purchased the review sample. Our preamplifiers have won numerous awards and luminaries of the audiophile world who’ve installed them in their reference systems include Sam Tellig of Stereophile, Andrew Harrison of Hi-Fi News, David Price of Hi-Fi World, Paul Eros of TNT and Srajan Ebaen of 6 Moons. Such knowledgeable and generous support has frequently seen the Music First Audio Passive Preamplifier described as the best preamplifier ever made.