Rothwell atenuator's - a quick fix?

[Jonboy]

With pads, it's important to keep a subsequent interconnect short, so if you're using the Rothwell type built into an connector, you should have them on the far end of your interconnect - ie at the pre-amp end - otherwise, you'll likely find severe treble roll-off, which is probably what Nigel exprienced above. I used to use pads between my ARC SP8 & Radford STA15

I'm glad someone knows how to use the pads in this way as i've only used them on speakers, how do you find the Radford Chris, i have always had a hankering for one

[The Grand Wazoo]

Love it, love it, love it!!!!
It's in need of a little work at the moment, plus it looks like a bag of old spanners, but when it's playing, it's just sublime. One of the few truly great vintage amps.

[Jonboy]

Love it, love it, love it!!!!
It's in need of a little work at the moment, plus it looks like a bag of old spanners, but when it's playing, it's just sublime. One of the few truly great vintage amps.

Thats what i've heard Chris, if it needs componant work you can drop it into mine when your next down and i can get my man to sort it out for you if you like, he has done one recently but i missed the chance to have a listen, i have also been tempted by the SP8 pre but they don't come up that often, my man is getting me a Audionote Zero pre for me to try they can be tweaked a bit and they are cheap

[Ali Tait]

I have a Zero dac which I've tweaked a little.Very nice.

[Jonboy]

I have heard that the Zero range cost to much to make and sell at a profit at the price point it was aimed at but sounded very good as a system,(i very nearly bought one)the mono blocks suffered from over heating becuase of the size of the case work, this can be helped with a pc type fan being fitted to help extract some of the hot air.

I have listened to their OTO intergrated SE a very nice sounding amp only out putting 9 watts but matched with Tannoys it sounds amazing.

I do like their stuff but not their prices

[DSJR]

I'm glad someone knows how to use the pads in this way as i've only used them on speakers, how do you find the Radford Chris, i have always had a hankering for one

I found the STA25 sounded very like a new Naim CB160


....Mind you, it had leaky caps after eleven years and was used with the SC2(?) preamp......

I wonder what it would have sounded like re-capped and with a modern valvey preamp?

[Primalsea]

The thing is with attenuators is that they are passive and you have to consider the output impedance of the source and the input impedance of the receiving equipment as well as cable capacitiance.

The problem with most valve amps is that the volume control is effectively a passive pre amp before the amplifing circuitry. This means that the input impedance tends to change with volume setting. Sticking another passive attenuator infront of a passive attenuator can lead to problems such as that mentioned above.

Its horses for courses as usual.