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In Reply to: My EAR 88PB just arrived... posted by T-Rex on May 8, 2007 at 13:33:12:
Looks like a great design .... I would have been leery of the volume pot inline if it weren't for the following bufferstage & trannies ..." ... inclusion of a volume control allows for direct connection to a power amp in one-source systems. To avoid cable-dependent high frequency response, a highly linear buffer stage follows the volume control, using an output transformer which provides balanced or single-ended output at a low impedance which can effortlessly drive long cables... "
Cool. Iron in, Iron out, choice of single or balanced drive, and a mono switch.
Do update as you get it burned in. Congrats
Follow Ups:
...of the volume pot, but i agree that the buffer & trannies help reduce the problems. the volume pot -- all volume pots -- are big areas for loss of signal quality. my concern would simply be that folks who have another preamp (or an amp w/ volume control) would then have a SECOND volume pot/control.this is all moot if one is using this to run directly to an amp that does not have volume control.
i have the opposite situation: a phono stage (which is a phono-only preamp) with no volume control or switches, feeding an amplifier with volume control.
The volume pot is actually a good thing. The 88PB has a lot of gain, more than the specs suggest. With the volume pot at 2:00, the EAR has as much gain as my CJ Premier 15-2 with Jensen step-up - 75 dB! The volume pot lets you match the phono to other sources. See my review.You could easily jumper it out of the circuit, but I doubt it would be sonically significant to do so, especially because EAR recommends NOT using the volume control wide open.
Mine is currently with Mitch Sugarman getting his mod. Can't wait!
Happy listening.
Hey Jerry - Can you spare some info about the mods? Also, when you get it back - I'd love to hear from you what difference they made!
The issue is that all volume pots degrade the sound (in varying degrees, to be sure) -- they are a necessary evil.Whether the volume pot sounds best at 1/2, 2/3 or fully-open is a bit irrelevant -- that's just the point of lowest loss from the designer's perspective.
The bigger issue I was pointing out (maybe not so well) was using equipment with multiple volume pots/controls, e.g., a volume control on the EAR, plus one on a preamp, plus one on an amp in the worst case.
If one was running the EAR into an amp directly, there's no issue. In my case, I use a phono stage (no switches or volume control) directly into an amp with a volume control.
I suspect that some people might wind up with 2 volume controls in their system, which is one too many.
Volume pots, more than other small parts, have an audible affect on the sound (and not just on the volume ;-)).
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