Posted by BeatleFred on July 13, 2003 at 12:59:38:
In Reply to: Pre-Amps??? posted by Mike H. on July 12, 2003 at 12:10:06:
Mike:
Your 221 Receiver already has a preamp built into it. A receiver consists of 3 main units: preamp section, power amp section, and the tuner (am/fm radio) section.
An integrated amplifier has an internal preamp and power amp but not any radio capability, so you would add an external tuner to that if you wanted to listen to am/fm radio.
Finally, you can buy two separate units, a preamp and a power amp and connect them together via cables.
You can look at the various Sansui models on this site's Homepage and learn more about the various receivers, integrated amps, pre amps, and power amps that Sansui made.
There is a photo on this site of the 221 receiver but it doesnt show the back of it. But there is one of the back of a higher model, the 441. I wanted to see if the receiver has a switch in the back that can separate the preamp section from the power amp section- but the 441 doesnt have this option and thus the smaller 221 would not have it either. Some other Sansui receivers such as the 9090DB, 9090, 8080DB..... do have separable pre/power amp sections. Having this capability makes it easy to add an external preamp or power amp to your unit.
If your 221 had Pre Out and Main Jacks in the back, you could connect another external preamp such that a cd player left and right output cables go into the the new preamp's left & right inputs and then the new preamp's left & right outputs go into the left and right Main In jacks of the back of the receiver. The new Creek OBH 12 preamp, for example, is about the size of a pack of cigarettes and is capable of remote control of volume level. But you can only connect a cd player to it, it doesnt have a phono input to be able to play albums.
You can consider buying another Sansui receiver or integrated amp that has separble pre/power amp sections (or I have a vintage Pioneer SA-7500 amp with this capability I could sell to you if you are interested) and then hook up an external remote control preamp to it.
B/F