GuitarBizarre

The speakers you have are active. (This term refers to speakers that operate without the need for external amplification, since they contain internal amplifiers. This enables them to be run directly from any given source without the need for another box)

As such, they're designed to be fed from a line level source, such as a PC headphone jack, or CD player. In PC use, this is not a problem, as a PC soundcard is capable of mixing together lots of sounds and sources and controlling them via software, so only one output is needed and all rerouting of signals and so on, is handled by the PC software.

In proper HiFi however, the CD player, Turntable, Cassette Deck, and any other equipment, exists in the form of seperate boxes, with individual Line Level Outputs. While feeding these into active speakers WORKS, to change from listening to CD to listening to Cassette, you would need to unplug and swap the cables each and every time, causing a lot of wear, a lot of hassle, and prematurely destroying the connectors if a lot of changing is done.

Turntables are not Line Level sources however, they're comparitively very, very low level sources. even if you did find a way to put the RCA Phono connections from your turntable into a set of Active speakers, the inbuilt amplification is designed to boost signals that start off at much stronger voltages. You would get a very, very quiet sound. It would also be very noisy, as that kind of extreme volume control level on active speakers, would result in lots of nosie being boosted too.

Because of this, Turntables require preamplification, to bring their low level (Which is usually only a few millivolts at the absolute most.) signal up to Line Level (Which is 2V at the peaks).

So yes, you will need a preamp. I would also recommend using a proper stereo amp and passive speakers, they'll be much better than nigh-on anything active you can find.

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