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In Reply to: Re: passive preamp question: A matter of Mood as well posted by mobile homeless on January 23, 2001 at 07:52:54:
This has been an issue I have been wrestling with for months. Overall, we tend to like the sense of proportion provided by an active preamp. Extra gain offered to source signals just seems to me to provide a sense of immediacy that a passive control can almost match, but not quite. I have built from scratch 2 (sorry, 2 from scratch, one kit)different active linestages, and all of them sound quite good to me -- especially the Eric Barbour design that uses a single, subminiature tube. For me, the drawback has to do with the extra noise of an additional power supply. Lowthers in horns tend to be extremely sensitive, and if upstream components are less quiet than desireable, the Lowthers will as faithfully amplify hum and buzz as they will music. And please don't even mention the fact that I might need to look at me grounding scheme. Everything (literally) in terms of shielding and SPG (single-point-grounding)has been tried. Lifting the grounds on the active preamp and one amplifier helped but little. So I am now using a passive control/attenuator. I would like to offer this, though, to those who might like to try a passive approach: Ther is NO NEED to BUY an expensive, already built or kit linestage if you want to get the flavor of a passive attenuator. MAKE ONE! They are easy to build. Get some RCA or BNC jacks (I use BNC) from Radio Shack, as well as a couple of 10K or 100k mono pots (I prefer linear to log taper), some cheap hookup wire, a decent little chassis for $6.00 -- some hardwood trim from a co-teacher at school makes mine look more expensive than it is, as well as a selector switch if you want one. With a couple of hour's work, you can see what a passive does for your system. For me, it provides the opportunity to listen to clean, clear music, without the constant frustration of figuring out how to kill some phantom noise of an active linestage, many of which provide far more gain than what many amps need in order to be driven to full output. Make your own interconnects out of inexpensive, low capacitance (mine measure just 16 pfd/ft.) coax with an all copper (not copper clad) center conductor and braided copper shield, and you are ready to listen to good-sounding music for a very reasonable price. After that, then go out and buy expensive volume controls using fixed resistances.I just miss not seeing the extra pair of tubes glow in the dark!
Erik
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