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Also, the components and build quality of pre/pro's is supposedly superior.



That's the key: "supposedly". I was never sure if a pre-pro was more expensive due to enonomy of scale as you mentioned, or if they really WERE superior.

So many people talk about whether amps sound different, but I hear no discussions involving the preamp. I could be very wrong about this, but I always assumed that it's harder to build a good preamp than amp due to the fact that the lower signal levels are inherently closer to the noise floor and more susceptable to interferences.... which later (literally) get amplified down the signal chain.

::::::: No disrespect to Axiom, but my favorite woofer is my yellow lab :::::::