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My amp AN Kit has a volume control on it. My pre-amp a Shindo Monbrison also has a volume control. I was wondering which one should keep the volume control all the way up and which one should control the volume. Would you expect better sound one way or the other??
Thanks,
Steve
Just to be safe you should look at the schematic for the preamp to make sure the are compatible.
Here is a situation I ran into. I built an RCA phono stage that had enough gain to drive directly into my amps. It was one of my first projects and I didn't think about it much when I built it. Both the phono stage and the power amps had volume controls. I noticed it sounded different when I compared two scenarios of volume up and down. Looking at the phono schematic (see link) I realized that the output had a coupling cap before the volume control. This is fine if you are driving directly into a grid of another tube (almost no current flow). But with the volume pot at the input of the power amp, I effectively set up a high pass filter with the roll off frequency tied to the phono volume pot.
With a preamp you are probably fine, but you might want to check the schematic to see that you don't have this problem.
Dan
FYI, I believe Shindo recommends, when possible, to adjust the amplifier so the pre amp's volume control is in the 12:00 range while listening.
Steve
What I would do is -
1) Turn the amp all the way up
2) Adjust the preamp to as loud as
you will ever want it plus some
(Giving you the max signal to the amp)
3) Then use the amp volume control
DanL
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Assuming both volume controls have good sonic quality, the optimum settings would be those that best balance between noise and overload distortion.
This is not that easy to figure out, and (IMHO) the problem arises because of a lack of standards for gain and signal levels in domestic audio. Most components have too much gain, to allow for the occasional combination that needs it. So in most cases, you would set one volume control to optimize the signal levels, and leave it there. Then use the other one for adjusting levels on a daily basis.
I have a white paper posted on the Bottlehead web site under the "Community" heading, which provides more details than most people want (!) - I have not been able to cut it down without leaving out things I think are important. It might be helpful.
Looks most informative - not overly detailed at all.
Thanks for the effort and info.
Raymond
"As long as we have any intention to be right... we should be wary. So long as words have the slightest ego attachment, they are dishonest."
Charlotte Joko Beck
So the advice to take one potentiometer out of the signal path by turning it all the way up is not a one size fits all piece of wisdom? I thought maybe the preamp or the amp might work better all the way up. Could you list the URL for your white paper? Thanks.
Well actually it has a black background with white letters, so maybe it's a black paper? Anyhow, here it is.
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