Lightspeed Attenuator - Best Preamp Ever?
Like a metal dome tweeter without a Zobel network on it, they ring very similar and sound "hot". And the proper word to call it is it's resonance frequency, "ring like a bell" is just slang. That is why when the TVC is loaded down by a 1kohm load (in my posted Stereophile graph) it damps the resonant frequency out and creates a roll off instead, but then you also have an impedance mismatch. Cheers George |
I can understand why someone would think that a passive pre amps and a LSA are lacking something compared to a tube active pre-amp. It's the noise that is seldom ever noticed until it's gone and if you've made the mistake to feel that the pre sounds fuller than an LSA then I think it's the added noise you like. When I speak of "noise" I mean the stuff that encrusts the music like a spiders web. You hear the music, it sounds good. Clean up the noise and the music sounds anemic, threadbare, fatiguing, sterile, pick any term you like. But it's just the absence of the noise that was filling in the cracks that made the sound "smoother,fatter, sweeter" or pick any term you like for pleasant distortions we all live with and accept. When you start to rid your system of the "noise"by cleaning up the power from your panel to your gear,and doing the tweaky things that just can't make any difference, you begin to hear your system in a new clear and cleaner light. You can then more fully appreciate how a clean sounding passive pre (or better yet an LSA) is doing such a great job of not adding any more noise to the system. I've just done some more tweaks involving Nordost QV2 and several Stillpoint ERS cloths throughout my system. I can add that the system has never sounded better, and that the LSA is adding nothing to detract from the sound. Did the sound become more threadbare by eliminating more of the "noise" No. What I notice is more detail and space between the instruments and vocals. The space that was filled with noise isn't . It just space where there should be space and music where there should be music. The two are not entwined together in the spider's web. More than ever I feel that noise is being accepted as part of the sound of some systems that are described as warm, musical and smooth. And when absent some folks miss it. They blame the new school of audio design as having lost it's way , lacking soul and of ramping up the treble for the sake of all the old audio farts etc. The LSA is noise free in my system. And that's all that I want from any component. A component that neither adds nor subtracts from the music. I wish there were more components like the LSA. |
I don't know, but if you look at the thread I posted at diyAudio forums on how to make a Lightspeed yourself if you electronically minded. http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/analog-line-level/80194-lightspeed-attenuator-new-passive-preamp.html It's ratio is at 1 million hits for 5,000 posts Cheers George |
