Placette RVC vs. Placette Active?

Thanks Larry! By the way, I also owned those Stax Omega phones I see in your system. (I later switched to dynamics and good headphone amps as technology progressed).
I was actually considering either using the Placette on its own or adding it between my (tubed) preamp and amp and seeing which setup sounds better.

If you do not need buffering to match source, ICs, to amp, I would expect the RVC to be a better choice, but many systems do need some buffering, especially if you run long ICs, and in that setting the Active would be preferable - so nothing inherent to either independent of system context . I agree that a balance control would have been nice (I owned both) - I good alternative would be the BENT Tap-X (which I also owned), which also has the benefit of volume control and does address impedance matching in a way the RVC can't, and much cheaper than the active. In a proper system, I would choose the Lightspeed Attenuator over any of them (though it does lack balance control).

08-08-11: Pubul57
In a proper system, I would choose the Lightspeed Attenuator over any of them (though it does lack balance control).
Pubul57

Hi Paul, I also do a twin mono L&R volume control version for $35 extra, just thought I'd let you know.

Cheers George

Clio09 (Antony)
Just ordered one.

Cheers George

A friend has a passive linestage built around a light sensitive resistor/LED element (like the Lightspeed, though I am not sure of the brand he is using). Like the Placette, that device offers a large number of steps of attenuation. He uses it in an ideal setup (very short interconnects and very high input impedance of the amplifier that it feeds). I really like the sound of that linestage. However, we did an informal comparison with a VERY good active tube linestage and found it a touch less dynamic, particularly at lower volumes; that seems to be the story with ALL the passives I've heard. The best in this respect are the transformer passives. I bet that the advantage of those devices is that, instead of attenuating by wasting energy as heat, a transformer converts the voltage to current when stepping down voltage for lower volume. My problem with transformer passives has to do with the few steps offered--it always seems to be the case that the desired volume is between adjacent steps.