Passive Pre - No Regrets?

Pubul57, the tube preamps were the reference Lamm, Hovland HP-100 and Audio Research's reference before the Ref 3.

What you might find interesting is that I was discussing preamps with a dealer who is a tube "maven" about what would be worth auditioning in his opinion. When I asked him what preamp he uses in his home system, he laughed and said the Placette active line stage! He believed that it offered the best performance, even if it was not a tube based linestage. He also shared that all of his clients that auditioned the Placette kept it and traded in their tube preamps.

Teajay, that is a very impressive lineup of tube preamps. I think the CAT is up there too. I started this looking for a passive to try, but what has impressed my is the Placette focus on trying to build the "perfect" volume control. I'm going to continue to A/B with the CAT for a while, but either way I think this RVC is a keeper, especially at $1000.

Pubul57,

Wait until you get 100 hours or so on the Placette, bet things just get better and better. Take your pick as to whether passives actually "burn in" or it takes a little time to notice all the extra fine, subtle, details that get through. But, you should be able to notice things that never came through in recordigns before.

Enjoy! (and let's know how things develop)

Atmasphere: I found that the resistance of the control changes the sound A LOT, huge changes and that worries me, I have been closing in on the best value for my system and I have always been going lower, now I am using 1k, the diference from 1k to 1.2k is big, mainly the instruments get more body and weight, dynamics are also better. With 10k there was no dynamics, the snare drum didt really move me it sounded like a stick...going lower its becomes more of a drum, fuller sound and it begins to move your belly when it hits (thats what I like!!)
With my active preamp I had huge dynamics and almost no transparency loss...the passive is more transparent and I have almost huge dynamics..If I had never heard the active that way I would be very happy with my passive right now.

I am going to try a 800 ohm control and see what happens!!

I am also using AN tantalum resistors since they give out a fuller body than the caddocks or vishay I tried.

I talked to Guy from Placette and he didnt recommend a 1k attenuator, he does not make it either...so I will have to get the active Placette then! If its 20 or 30 % better more transparent and dynamic its does sound pretty good...does it come with a phono section also?

I posted my thoughts early in this thread and have been following the very constructive discussion.

i read somewhere in the thread that the power supply for the Placette passive RVC does not (or should not) benefit from a quality power cord. that was also my thought 'originally' too. but i did experiment with it and to my great surprise i did hear a bit lower noise floor with the little power supply connected to a good power cord. i don't have my RVC any more and can't remember exactly how it connects....but until you try it don't 'assume' anything.

my opinion is simply that the Placette is sooo damn transparent that any improvement jumps right out. Guy from Placette told me at one point that you can 'stack' 5 RVC's and compare them to one RVC and they sound identical. i believe it. try that with any other attenuator.