knowhatimean
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2011
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@knowwhatimean:
OT, but I was looking at the Rothwell Attenuators, it seems most believe they make no or very little sonic impact, whereas I read another review that seemed to indicate they change the sound quite a bit (taking away highs). Did you compare the Rothwell's versus attenuation in software (through iTunes or other audio software)?
I can only go by the results that I've had using them , which I feel have been a help in my regaining a bit more volume wiggle from my headphone amp.
Before using the Attentuators I normally ran out of useable volume by the time I moved my volume control to 9 o'Clock or so before I would be listening to music that Is a bit louder than I care to listen to. 95% of the time I'm listening to Acoustic music that contains a high amount of dynamic contrast in it. Your stuck between listening at at a slightly reduced listening level if you want to avoid becoming ear fatigued sooner than you'd prefer when you're listening to Orchestral music.
With the Rothwells in place I'm able to advance the volume up to anywhere between 11 to 1 o'Clock in most cases. More importantly I may have a half to 3/4 inch of fine adjustment volume control travel available to
work with, rather than the 1/8 to 1/16 " of adjustment I had previously. I do have to be honest here though & admit that that I ended up getting a second set of the Attentuators as the -12db(or were they -15) was'nt quite enough. I believe I'm using about -32db attentuation between the additional pair which I've piggybacked to the first set. I don't know how well this would be working if I didn't have a very low noisefloor to my playback system In place. ( I'm not sure I would have even tried using these without this very dead silent noisefloor in front of everything)
I ended up spending a bit over $100 on the two sets, but I've spent more on NOS tube sets that weren't nearly as sucessful upgrades as these turn out to be. They really aren't intended to have much "sonic impact" they'r.more about having more the ability to make much finer incremental adjustments where needed. I'm not using a qPC playback frontend so a software solution would be pretty difficult to use for my playback chain.