Originally Posted by
Macca
No, there's as much debate about this as with everything else. On paper a stepped attenuator passive is the most 'truthful'. But not completely so. And then you have personal taste on what you want the sound to be like. As Jez said earlier, the Slagle passive enhanced leading edges a little compared to the others. This could be colouration or the truth, hard to say without listening to a wider variety of recordings than we did. If you have too much colouration some recordings are enhanced, some become unlistenable. That's when you've gone wrong. If you can get it sounding how you want it without falling into that trap, you've cracked it.
I've not cracked it yet.
I would say that they are completely accurate and perfect in an audio context. The only thing more accurate is a frequency compensated stepped attenuator in a 50 Ohm system and this is irrelevant until we get to MHz frequencies...
Something I keep mentioning is that a perfect anything in hi fi, other than speakers I guess, would likely not stand out as anything special. It's "just" not adding or taking away anything at all. If you are used to a range of top quality equipment and something new comes along that sounds really "wow!" I'd be very suspicious of it... It's probably really coloured in a way that's initially impressive or at least on one type of music...
Arkless Electronics-Engineered to be better. Tel. 01670 530674 (after 1pm)
Modded Thorens TD150, Audio Technica AT-1005 MkII, Technics EPC-300MC, Arkless Hybrid MC phono stage, Arkless passive pre, Arkless 50WPC Class A SS power amp, (or) Arkless modded Leak Stereo 20, Modded Kef Reference 105/3's
ReVox PR99, Studer B62, Ferrograph Series 7, Tandberg TCD440, Hitachi FT-5500MkI, also FT-5500MkII
Digital: Yamaha CDR-HD1500 (Digital Swiss army knife-CD recorder, player, hard drive, DAC and ADC in one), PC files via 24/96 sound card and SPDIF, modded Philips CD850, modded Philips CD104, modded DPA Little Bit DAC. Sennheiser HD580 cans with Arkless Headphone amp.
Cables- free interconnects that come with CD players, mains leads from B&Q, dead kettles etc, extension leads from Tesco