Originally Posted by
RothwellAudio
The so-called "series" resistor and "shunt" resistor in a potential divider are both doing the same job and one cannot be more more important than the other. Imagine as an example a poor quality resistor which has a lot of parasitic inductance: if you put it in the shunt position where, it is claimed, it doesn't matter it will still form a high pass filter. So it must matter! Of course it does or else why have it there at all? There's no rational explanation as to why one of the two resistors should be more important than the other - other than expectation bias based on a misunderstanding of electronics and a belief in "the signal path".
I think you're being a bit unfair there, Jez. It's perfectly possible to have too much gain at the front end of a circuit - so it distorts - but also have some attenuation further down the line so the actual signal level doesn't appear to be overly "hot". Less gain at the front and more gain (or less attenuation) later on would cure it.
BTW, I'm not familiar with the exact circuit details of the Jolida but I have read that it does suffer from piling on the gain and then simply cutting the level with attenuation.
I was waiting to see if anyone who knows what they're talking about would come along and say that! Yes technically there is such a thing as gain structure and it is important. What I'm ridiculing is the concept of there being a subjectively important gain structure. So long as overload margins and noise have been taken care of by proper design it makes no difference if the vol control has to be at 5 or 8 for the same volume.
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