Pharmaboy
Headphoneus Supremus
(obsession is triggered now)keen to try a better passive preamp. bought a cheap sub 100 buck one off amazon and it did the job. so am wondering what higher end passive preamps will offer. am in touch with Tim from Axiom for one of his Luminous preamps with walker mod. thereafter maybe a Music First Audio preamp if I like how the Axiom one sounds.
I have a long and stormy history with passive preamps. I came within a hair of buying an Axiom 7-8 years ago. Would have if Tim hadn't been severely out of pocket due to a death in the family. These days the passives that really interest me are all TVCs (transformer volume control), specifically, boxes using autoformers by Slagle & others.
- The problem I found w/trad passives is they fully expose the listener to the sum total of the capacitance and impedance (in and out) of his/her system where the passive would reside. It might sound great; or, as happened to me a couple times, it sounded awful, thin, bright, weird, dynamics MIA
- My first passive ended up being the best--an inexpensive TVC from NHT, makers of the powered monitors & sub that revolutionized my desktop audio game ~18 yrs ago. That little TVC uses a transformer, RCA in/RCA out, and a simple pot (no remote). Its sonic deficiencies even w/far better components than before are very minor, hard to hear if I'm not critically listening.
- At no time does the TVC drain the life out of the sound as a PVC may/can
https://www.audiogon.com/listings/l...-amplifier-silver-passive?refsource=hifishark
And here's the new one (already "end of life cycle"!!) I fantasize about buying:
https://www.passivepreamp.com/product/icon-4-pro-unbalanced/
(obsession returned to storage in mind/vault)