joessportster Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 What to do when a combination of gear is to much gain for higher efficiency speakers. In my situation I have near 100DB single drivers speakers (Decware ZF15M), Powering the speakers has been a bit of a PITA up to now I could BARELY turn up my Pre Im talking 7 maybe 8:00 o-clock and it was already at 90+ DB in room. The rest of my gear consists of Decware Rachael 6wpc amp... Transcendent Sound Masterpiece 300B pre with 12 DB of gain......Wavelength Cosecant or Altmann Attraction DAC's either has 3V. output which is 50% higher than the 2v. of most DAC's The combination of the elevated output on the DAC's with the Pre 12 DB of gain and the 6 wpc amp meant barley any room for adjustment on the pre. I am a firm believer that a sweep pot (volume) has a sweet spot and it has been my experience that is always somewhere near the 1/2 way point. Im thinking passive is where I will be forced to go that or one of the attenuators etc... I HATE using a bandaid which is what I consider the atten. to be. I am not a huge fan of most Passive Pre-amps either I have had / heard a few & they dont seem to have the DRIVE of an active pre. I really like both my DACs and am not interested in swapping them both out. I ordered a Luminous Axiom 2 Passive on the suggestion of a friend I put it in place of my Transcendent pre and sure enough as I thought NO DRIVE to the music. As its a small unit and requires no power it is completely passive & it has a Direct input. I put my dacs output into the direct in on the Axiom and one of the Axiom outputs into my Transcendent pre input. and BOOM I have my drive back and can now use my transcendent as it was meant to be Basically I am using the small passive to CUT the output of my DAC before it goes into my Pre-amp. There are cheaper Passives out there like the Schitt Sys that this little sneak around could help others that might find themselves in a situation similar to mine . I know this is a bandaid fix as well but I like it better than the attenuators idea. This seems to have NO ill affect to the sound Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarheel TJ Posted July 28, 2020 Share Posted July 28, 2020 I have also had a lot of trouble over the years with gain structure. It is a real problem with 100dB+ speakers! In my case, it has manifested itself as the never-ending quest to quiet noise and hum. The slightest hum or fuzz from any component is very evident with high-efficiency speakers. My system still is not 100% silent, thought it is close enough that most wont notice the slight hum. I know I could use attenuators to solve the problem, but like you, I have a hard time just throwing all that gain in the trash! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joessportster Posted July 29, 2020 Author Share Posted July 29, 2020 11 hours ago, Tarheel TJ said: I have also had a lot of trouble over the years with gain structure. It is a real problem with 100dB+ speakers! In my case, it has manifested itself as the never-ending quest to quiet noise and hum. The slightest hum or fuzz from any component is very evident with high-efficiency speakers. My system still is not 100% silent, thought it is close enough that most wont notice the slight hum. I know I could use attenuators to solve the problem, but like you, I have a hard time just throwing all that gain in the trash! Good thing about the passive between your source and pre-amp is all the gain is still available at any time with the turn of a knob....................As long as you get a truly transparent passive it does not affect fidelity either. win / win IMHO 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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