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Re: Which is the BEST step attenuator

192.193.195.25

Thorsten,

The Elma switches come in gold plated and silver contacts. The silver ones are cheaper and may be better initially but after time will they degenerate faster and therefore sound worse than the gold ones?

Which military switches and resistors do you use? Where can one get them?

I'm currently using Holcos for experimentation as they are cheap and plentiful at the neighbourhood store. Once I get the design right I will get the best possible resistors.

Have you tried a one step attenuator? ie. just one resistor for series and one for shunt calculated for your desired listening volume - no switches no wires as the resistor is soldered directly from input to output. It is amazing!!!! but of course you have no control over the volume but it's fun to try at least once.

I find the shunt design gets you to or exceeds a ladder attenuator quality without the cost. Are you familiar with this design. It's a fixed series resistor (use vishay since you only need 2) and variable shunt which uses a step attenuator to control the shunt resistance. So you always only have one resistor in the audio signal path. However I find that even though the attenuator/pot is used only as shunt resistance and is not in the signal path, it still makes a difference to the quality of the sound

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