Preamplifiers are boring. Pick your input and crank up the volume (or down if the wife yells at you). How hard can it be to build a good preamplifier? As it turns out, it is quite difficult to do well. Your preamplifier is the central hub of your entire system and the lowest common denominator. A great one makes your system sing and a bad one chokes life from your music. Your stereo is a system, which means all of the components are coupled with each other. But each component has its own needs to optimally couple with the system and it is the preamplifiers job to do that. On the other side, it sends the audio signal to an amplifier, again with its own unique characteristics. Building a preamplifier that can adjust to all of the various inputs and outputs without impacting sound quality is hard work. Doing it right isn't inexpensive but the results are clear and immediate: better music.