Passive Pre's--Placette RVC or Luminous Axiom

Maybe you don't understand the concept of the TVC. It is a passive attenuator, but using the transformers instead of resistors for the attenuation. What you have is the same level of transparency as the Axiom or the Placette, but w/o the limitations of dynamics and frequency extremes of these two. You would be doing yourself a great injustice by not investigating further.

Oz

I had a Monolithic, First Sound and PLC Sonic Euphoria passives, to my ears the First Sound was thebest sounding, just with the trade-off of having a little sense of dynamic handling compared to the PLC (alsoa good choice)

The Monolithic is great for the money as well.

Fernando

Sorry, but blanket answers about the performance in an unspecified system may result in answers that won't be correct for you. This will be particularly true if you play vinyl with a low output cartridge in which case there are tradeoffs to be made.

The main issue is gain and impedance matching into your power amp.

Can you tell us more about your system?

As a user of the EVS Ultimate Attenuators (the name says it all) I can predict you won't be disappointed. Just be sure to talk with the designer, that will make sure the item constructed for you is suitable, just as The smokester explained.

I am talking about apples vs. apples here. If he has already determined that a passive device will work in his system, then a TVC will best a resistor based passive. My amp has 37db of voltage gain and a 100K ohm input impedance. My phono preamp has 65 db of gain and my cart. has an output of 0.3 mV. So yes, my system is optimized for a passive. You are correct, the final result is dependant on all these paramaters. I was assuming the poster had addressed all this already.

Oz