Wayne Parham Messages: 18758 Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)
I think you're exactly right. I've heard a handful of systems with passive "preamp" sections that sounded strained, and I thought they could use a buffer. I didn't take a scope to them - would have been rude to step up and say "sounds like shit, let me bring a scope" - but my guess is the source was overloaded for some reason. It probably was designed for a 47KΩ load and was actually seeing something much less, like maybe 1KΩ or something. A unity gain stage would solve this.