My
personal opinion on this particular piece of equipment, and its creator
is not important in this thread, or dare I say, it would not be ethical
from a trade point of view to portray it.
However; I would like to make a few points and observations as far as
Audio equipment, and their associated electronics.
First of all, any device [be it semiconductor, Thermionic Valves,
resistors, capacitors, switches, connectors etc] within the signal path
will have an influence, however small, on the signal being passed
through it, therefore; it is obviously desirable from a design point to
limit the affect on the original signal by any devices, contacts,
switches, connections etc within the signal path to the absolute minimum
in order to achieve a desired outcome by the designer.
So, armed with this fact, any rational thinking mind should now be under
no illusion that any piece of equipment is going to tell the “absolute
truth” as far as the original signal it has been fed is concerned.
Now, sometimes adding more to the signal path can’ in many cases
actually improve the over-all performance of not only the individual
pieces of equipment, but the system as a whole, why, well, because your
dealing with Audio signals, and having the need to attenuate them to
achieve the desired final perceived volume of the system, therefore you
then have to deal with the matching of any attenuating device to the
previous, [Source] and post devices, Ie the Amplifier,,, this opens up a
huge can of worms, and can be a real headache to come up with a
satisfactory solution.
My own ideas on preamps have been documented elsewhere, and I was happy
enough with the final results [taking into account the issues outlined
above] to put some of them into production. However; I was under no
illusion that any of my designs were a perfect solution to all of the
issues associated with Audio signal drive and attenuation, but as I
said’ I was, and still am’ very happy with the results.
This brings me back to the original reason I decided to write this post.
There are some very good engineers here, who have also produced products
that they feel address the issues of attenuation, [some aspects to a
lesser, or greater degree, depending on the importance deemed by each
individual designer, with respect to the issues involved in attenuation]
some of us promote the simplest, and most straight forward approach,
and some of us feel that we needed a different approach, either way;
what I am saying is; there are several routes to achieving a desired
result as far as attenuating Audio signals, and overcoming the matching
of pre, and post equipment’ in an attempt to obtaining an acceptable
result by the designer.
Nothing is perfect!