preamp

noun

pre·​amp ˈprē-ˌamp 

variants or less commonly pre-amp

plural preamps also pre-amps

: preamplifier

On a fundamental level, a preamp makes sound louder without adding noise. Plug a smartphone into a stereo with the volume maxed out and you'll likely get a lot of distortion. A preamp adds that volume without the noise.

—Thorin Klosowski

The goal was to assemble a transportable machine that would pick up the specific nuclear signatures associated with materials used in nuclear weapons while screening out materials that might trigger a similar reading, a lab spokesman said. … The systems' parts, though not all available from Radio Shack, came from components on hand at the lab … including a hand-held computer, a pre-amp, an amplifier and a solid-state detector.

—Inside Energy/with Federal Lands

Examples of preamp in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Video capture cards, audio preamps, colorimeter hardware, external GPUs, or even printers or scanners that require some kind of driver for advanced functionality—there aren't Arm Windows drivers for most of these things, and there's no way for Microsoft to translate or emulate the problem away. —Andrew Cunningham, Ars Technica, 2 July 2024

That’s because microphones need preamps to replace the magic that’s often lost in the digital conversion, and some of the slightly more expensive options have a host of quality of life features that just make everything sound better (and often easier to work with). —Spin Contributor, SPIN, 30 May 2024

Almost every integrated amplifier, preamp and streaming receiver features a ¼-inch jack on the front panel, and headphone amplification circuitry which is generally an afterthought and not remotely capable of extracting the capability of a device like the Solitaires. —Robert Ross, Robb Report, 13 Dec. 2022

The insider lingo, such as counterweight, cartridge, preamp and rumble rating, is enough to make your head spin. —Laura Daily, Washington Post, 8 Aug. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1944, in the meaning defined above