Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site


In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: The ultimate buffer – light in the end of a tunnel
Post Subject: A Temporary Plug-in balance control Posted by Romy the Cat on: 2/28/2007

 RonyWeissman wrote:
I didn't realize that there is no balance control on the unit.  I know in theory this should not be a problem, but I miss this feature for several reasons.  Can't have everything when you buy on the used market though... 

Yes, I agree a banes control would be a useful future, thought I would like do not have one more relay in a signal pass when I use the unit it at 0db between the channels.   I need a balance control only for the moments when I work from home - my work desk is at almost 90 degree to the system on the left. So, when I know that I will be working home all day long I plug into my left amp’s RCA jack an adapter that has a minus 9dB voltage divider and it sets the balance at my desk to at 0db.  As an alterative you might look for older production of EVS attenuator or to many similar products:

http://www.tweakaudio.com/Ultimate%20Attenuators.html

http://www.diyparadise.com/stepped_atten.html

With those attenuators (make sure they use RN60 resistors) plagued directly into the RCA jack and they do not drive any cable (like EVS does) then they are extremely transparent. I have to point of that EVS-type attenuators will drop the input impedance of your load but with 8R of Placette’s output it is negligible for a temporary solution

The final solution would be send the unit back to Placette. Guy is extremely flexible, he has absolutely no idiotic ego (as the most of the manufactures) do and I assure you he will do whatever necessary to accommodate what YOU want. If you wiling to pay a little more then you could put a second processor in your unit and to have 2 sensors and ability to change attenuation between right and left channels independently….

 RonyWeissman wrote:
My unit has what is referred to as Dual Volume Control, which allows it to play at very low levels. Though turning up the volume with Dual Volume Control engaged doesn't sound as good as turning down the volume without the DVC engaged. Maybe this is a question of break-in time on the resistors, who knows.

Hm, I do not know what the “Dual Volume Control” is.  What puzzles me that you report that in one volume setting it doesn't sound as good as in others. It has nothing to do with break-in it juts should not be.

 RonyWeissman wrote:
and yes I am excited about biamping now.  Here's a question: with the placette unit, am I better off with longer interconnect between preamp/amp and shorter speaker cables, or inverse? I need about 3M run to get to speakers. 

Well, Placette has 8Ohm output impedance, the lowers I ever seen and it is DC coupled. Many manufactures sing the songs that their preamps can drive complex load but the really is that the louder songs are the more impotent output stage the preamps have (I can give a lot of examples). With 8R direct couple the Placette is very capable but the section of long interconnects vs. long speaker cables would not be only upon the preamp’s capacity but because of many other factors. With all things being equal I prefer long interconnects with monoblocks sitting right next to speakers. However this preference has totally utilitarian reasoning….

Rgs,
The CaT

Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site