Heh. It's funny how certain topics seem to crop up in batches
One week it's external DACs. This week it's dedicated pre-amps and pre-pros!
Sorry, didn't mean to start my reply on a tangent, but it's just funny to me how that seems to happen
Anywho! On to the question at hand!
These days, there's really no reason to purchase a dedicated "separates" pre-pro instead of a good AV Receiver with pre-outs. Due to economies of scale, the receivers have more features, more inputs, the latest formats, AND a lower price! They're all upside and no downside! Plus, they give you option of powering, say, just your front speakers with an external amp while using the built-in amps to power the far less demanding surround channels!
Really expensive separates exist simply because there is a small, but affluent crowd out there who convince themselves that expensive things are ALWAYS better - regardless of any real world performance. And that somehow, having FEWER features and FEWER inputs is a good thing because...I don't know...it makes them more elitist and discriminatory? I've no idea. There's no rational reason for it. It's all just about showing off and telling everybody how much you spent to get something that only does ONE thing.
The very best pre-pros that are being made right now are literally just the highest end receivers with the internal amps removed, XLR connectors inserted and the price tag increased! Because so few people are buying dedicated pre-pros these days, they really only tend to be based on the most expensive receiver model. If you can't sell very many, you have to sell each one at a higher mark up. So they're a low value proposition.
Bottom line - they don't sound any better. Low end receivers that happen to have pre-outs can certainly sound worse though. Exactly like what you're hearing. And that's because they often lack dedicated circuits for the pre-out section, so all of the noise in the power supply and other circuits are just finding there way to those cheap pre-outs.
But you don't have to spend a crazy amount to get a very good receiver with very good pre-outs that can go toe-to-toe with any dedicated pre-pro, but at a fraction of the price.
My favorite is certainly the
Onkyo TX-NR709 at $450 from accessories4less . It's a feature rich, very good AV Receiver that will work wonderfully with your Carver amp.
If you want the absolute most up-to-date, bleeding edge features, you can step up to the
TX-NR818 , which has a $1000 street price brand new, and a ridiculously affordable $750 price at accessories4less when they have them in stock! If you want the 818 for the $750 price, check A4L frequently! 818 units sell out the instant they arrive because of the
insane value at that price!
Other than Emotiva, there aren't really any dedicated pre-pros that even come close to those price points. And the Emotiva pre-pro lacks a lot of the features and inputs of these Onkyo AV Receivers.
You can look into Marantz. They have a dedicated pre-pro at a far more reasonable price at most that competes well on features and inputs. And Denon's higher end receivers (which are the only ones with pre-outs) also make for excellent pre-pros.
But in terms of value and getting all the features and inputs you could hope for, along with the necessary pre-outs, nothing can touch these Onkyo AV Receiver models for the price. Given that the one knock against Onkyo receivers is that they tend to run warm when pushing the internal amps, they're an even better match for external amplification! Take the burden of driving the front 3 speakers off of the internal Onkyo amps, and you've now got a killer pre-pro at a far more affordable price. AND you still have the internal amps available if you want to expand to 5, 7, or 9 channels and using the internal amps to handle the far less demanding surround and height channels
Hope that makes sense!
