Has anyone tried this Passive Pre?

[selby]

Found on eBay: http://bit.ly/1qmaZ0X

Or website: http://www.khozmo.com

They look beautifully made.

[istari_knight]

Nope, sorry.

I have been ogling them for a couple of years now though since the seller first showed them off on diyaudio... Certainly look nicely made.

[nat8808]

Funny, I was looking at that site today too - prompted by the thread in the Drawing Room forum about their stepped attenuator.

Held off asking the very same question.. The remote controlled versions look good.

I'd like a balanced version but balanced attenuation can be done with a shunt circuit effectively adjusting an amount of summing of the two out of phase signals and so therefore only using a dual pot/attenuator rather than the quad as is usually sold for balanced. It's what Audio Synthesis did for their ProPassion balanced attenuators as it prevents mis-matching of the dual attenuators on each channel from effecting the balanced topology.

[killie99]

'Rune' on PinkFish has one, rates it very highly, as does John Westlake (Mr MDAC)

[Marco]

Funny, I was looking at that site today too - prompted by the thread in the Drawing Room forum about their stepped attenuator.

Indeed - Joe was rather impressed with it, and I'm due to visit him on Sunday. That passive pre has a look of 'rightness' about it, although I'd want the Vishay Z-foil series resistors fitted. I'm almost tempted to blow next month's wine budget on one, just to see what it would do in my system, in comparison with the Croft...

If it doesn't work out, I could rob the stepped attenuator from it, compare that with the DACT unit I'm currently using in the Croft, and keep the rather nice case for some other project (perhaps to house some vintage transformers inside a bespoke-built SUT)?

Marco.

[john dolan]

Good review here

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/khozmo/1.html

Can buy just the attenuator here

http://www.hificollective.co.uk/catalog/newsdesk_info.php?newsdesk_id=189"

[YNWaN]

Looks very nicely made and extremely well priced. However, at the end of the day it is still a standard passive pre - personally, I would be more tempted by something like this:



a TVC passive - a Glasshouse one in this case.

[john dolan]

Looks very nicely made and extremely well priced. However, at the end of the day it is still a standard passive pre - personally, I would be more tempted by something like this:



a TVC passive - a Glasshouse one in this case.

Heres mine

[john dolan]

I find the TVC has a little more weight and punch over a normal passive preamp but they don't have it all their own way.

A normal passive in a system that's sympathetic to a passive has greater clarity and seems more honest to the signal to my ears.

A TVC will work in systems where a normal passive wont give its best.

Here is my Glasshouse passive with Seiden 43 step attenuator

[john dolan]

Marco you could just do a Zfoil shunt mod to your DACT

http://www.world-designs.co.uk/forum...ead.php?t=5795

Here is a pic of the one on my DACT