A few weeks ago I realised that I had too much gain in my system as I couldn't get the volume control on my preamp much above 9 o'clock without causing hearing damage. It was something I'd just not really thought about until I stumbled across an old review of the Rothwell Attenuators in a back issue of HiFi+.



I remembered reading about these years ago and the improvements they could make by allowing you to use your volume control around the 12 o'clock where they generally sound better. So I decided to give a pair of these a try. They're usually £39 a pair but I was lucky and found some on ebay which I got for about half price. This had the added benefit of them already being burnt in.

I installed these last night in between my Caiman DAC and my passive "preamp". I'm happy to say they that they definitely made an improvement in my system. I'm now able to set the volume control at 12 o'clock to achieve my preferred listening level with most music. This has improved the sound stage a little and made the volume control much less "jumpy". What I mean by jumpy is that as the pot is logarithmic and I'm now using it higher up it's range, small movements to the dial only make small changes to the actual volume. Before it was sometimes difficult to get the volume just right via the remote as it jumped a bit too far. Also, the fact that I'm only attenuating one input on my preamp means that the other inputs are unaffected. So I'll be able to use another input for my phono stage which will already have a lower output voltage than my DAC.

The build quality on these devices is very nice and they're very easy to install. I've also not noticed any reduction in sound quality which was something I was a little worried about seen as they're an extra obstacle for the audio signal. I guess they must cause a slight reduction in sound quality but it must be extremely small.

So overall these little widgets have made quite a substantial improvement to the level of enjoyment I can get from my system, so they were definitely worth 20 quid and are still quite reasonable at £40. I'd certainly recommend them to anyone suffering from excess gain.