Passive pre recommendations & advice on pots, etc

[farflungstar]

It sounds to me that the Tisbury has everything you want except remote control. Apart from remote control, what are you looking for in the "upgrade"? It's perfectly possible to make passives much more expensive than the Tisbury but I'm not convinced there's much advantage to it. Point-to-point wiring for example can be simply a labour-intensive (and therefore expensive) waste of time imho.

You're right Dave - it depends what the OP wants. Better sound? Convenience?

[farflungstar]

According to the original post priority is SQ - in which case I'd suggest Slagle or Truth. But that's only my opinion.

[Macca]

I found quite a significant difference between the Tisbury and other, more expensive passives.

[farflungstar]

+1

[Arkless Electronics]

It's not a good idea to have more than one output with a passive.

[Macca]

It's not a good idea to have more than one output with a passive.

go on...

[RothwellAudio]

Yes it plugs into the wall - but it adds no gain - the buffers require power but the signal isn't boosted in any way.

Having unity gain doesn't make it passive - that isn't what passive means.

[RothwellAudio]

go on...

If you have two outputs feeding two devices the two input impedances will be in parallel and the combination may well be on the low side.

[Arkless Electronics]

go on...

I knew you would ask.... The worst case generally CAN be when one item is switched off. If you have a passive pre (this applies to all pres really but passives will be vastly more effected, some valve gear second worse here) driving both your power amp and a headphone amp (or anything else) then the two amps being driven "see" each others inputs. Sometimes when gear is switched off its input impedance can be highly non linear and can cause distortion which you hear via the amp that is switched on. An AOS member had just such an issue a couple of weeks ago I recall. Even much less serious scenarios are highly likely to degrade SQ. Things connected to "Tape out" can have a similar effect BTW.

Without analysing specific makes and models of kit and having access to their circuit diagrams etc it's impossible to say precisely what kit will be adversely effected etc.

To climb on to my soapbox, it's one of the MANY things in audio that are important but virtually ignored by/not known to audiophiles... whilst meanwhile they obsess about stuff so unimportant it probably makes no difference....

[Simon_LDT]

It sounds to me that the Tisbury has everything you want except remote control. Apart from remote control, what are you looking for in the "upgrade"? It's perfectly possible to make passives much more expensive than the Tisbury but I'm not convinced there's much advantage to it. Point-to-point wiring for example can be simply a labour-intensive (and therefore expensive) waste of time imho.

I like the Tisbury but I ideally need more control of volume (more steps) because while I can generally find a good volume without problem at normal/louder levels it can be difficult at lower volumes to get what I need (due to thin walls and neighbours). One setting is too low but then the next has a bigger volume jump than I'd like.

Also I've read that while the Tisbury is great and super good value for money, I see many comment that it's easily beatable for not too much more money.

I knew you would ask.... The worst case generally CAN be when one item is switched off. If you have a passive pre (this applies to all pres really but passives will be vastly more effected, some valve gear second worse here) driving both your power amp and a headphone amp (or anything else) then the two amps being driven "see" each others inputs. Sometimes when gear is switched off its input impedance can be highly non linear and can cause distortion which you hear via the amp that is switched on. An AOS member had just such an issue a couple of weeks ago I recall. Even much less serious scenarios are highly likely to degrade SQ. Things connected to "Tape out" can have a similar effect BTW.

Without analysing specific makes and models of kit and having access to their circuit diagrams etc it's impossible to say precisely what kit will be adversely effected etc.

To climb on to my soapbox, it's one of the MANY things in audio that are important but virtually ignored by/not known to audiophiles... whilst meanwhile they obsess about stuff so unimportant it probably makes no difference....

That was me also. Seems this could be trickier to sort out than I initially thought... I really don't want to be plugging the headphone amp in/out all the time. Even if I had 2 passives, 1 for amp and 1 for headphone amp I'd still have the problem of connecting up both outputs on my DAC into the passives and having the distortion problem I had in the other thread. So even using a tape out no good either...?