Really blinkin' loud

[realysm42]

My M-dac, with the volume disabled at 0db is kinda badly matched for my amp, a lot of music is loud at 8 oclock on the amps volume.

Tbh I'm not too fussed, but having such a 'loud' item plugged into the amp isn't going to cause any trouble in terms of SQ or otherwise is it? I mean atleast I don't have to drive the amp very hard to get to a good level of sound.

Before, I had the volume enabled on the M-dac and turned down 20db, to give me some more control, but I just turned it back off and it sound a lot more engaggin without it.

[synsei]

You could try using Rothwell attenuators Martin ;)

[wee tam]

agree 100 % with dave as above , or simply remember to turn volume to ZERO after listening , becomes a habit IE volume down , amp , off , etc , same thing here , the vintage old skool , sanui , is very gainy , 8 oclock fine , 10 oclock , newcastle city hall volume :doh: simply remember ther "rules" and you will be fine , best thing is with this amount of gain , late night listening is grrrrrreat

[Haselsh1]

Yes I kind of remember my Croft pre/power from my CD player and how it was almost impossible to set a proper listening level due to everything being so goddamn sensitive. I ended up using attenuators on that and it helped no end.

[The Grand Wazoo]

What does a set of Rothwell attenuators do? They stick some resistance in the signal path.

Isn't that what the volume control built into the DAC is doing? If Martin prefers it with that switched out, isn't he going to prefer it without attenuators?

Padding down an input has a cost.
I'd learn to live with using one end of the control Martin, unless it is so coarse as to be uncontrollable or it's vastly different from another source that you use a lot and you're afraid of forgetting to turn it down & blasting your speaker drivers past your head! (Which is, of course a perfectly valid concern!)

[Dingdong]

You can get 20dB attenuators from Rothwell. They would probably do the trick. And I'd rather have a fixed resistor in the signal path rather than a pot.

I use 10dB ones with my pre, which has a bit too much gain. They work a treat.

[Haselsh1]

I used -14db attenuators with my Croft pre/power just so that I could set the volume right. They worked extremely well and made up for the lack of finesse in the Croft pre. By the way I used them between the pre and power on the input to the power so that I effectively had to increase the volume control on the preamp. Great things, gave me much more control.

[Macca]

I used -14db attenuators with my Croft pre/power just so that I could set the volume right. They worked extremely well and made up for the lack of finesse in the Croft pre. By the way I used them between the pre and power on the input to the power so that I effectively had to increase the volume control on the preamp. Great things, gave me much more control.

Iused Rothwell attenuators/Croft pre in the same position and found that although they did gove some more room on the volume control they killed the sound quite badly. Not sure how much attenuation the standard Rothwells supply, may be more than 14dB.

[Haselsh1]

Iused Rothwell attenuators/Croft pre in the same position and found that although they did gove some more room on the volume control they killed the sound quite badly. Not sure how much attenuation the standard Rothwells supply, may be more than 14dB.

Fully understand what you are saying here. When I used the attenuators with my Yarland 300B SE amplifier they screwed things up quite badly but I loved what they did for the Croft which was nearly unusable without them.

[Canetoad]

I use a set of 10dB Goldenjacks between my Busmaster and the input of the Croft pre. Used them for ages and they are great for reducing sensitivity to volume control (gain). I preferred these to the Rothwell variant.

[Haselsh1]

I use a set of 10dB Goldenjacks between my Busmaster and the input of the Croft pre. Used them for ages and they are great for reducing sensitivity to volume control (gain). I preferred these to the Rothwell variant.

Yeah the -14db ones I used were Goldenjacks ones and they were much better than the other type which I also owned at the time as they were only -10db and that was nowhere near enough for the Croft.

[Canetoad]

I'll have to check. Maybe they are 14dB. :scratch: All I know is they were the standard value and not a special order.

[realysm42]

I demoed some Rothwells (-10db) and just couldn't justify the cost. Tbh I was only worried that having two mis-matched components could be damaging one or the other.

As I mentioned, since turning off the pre amp section in my M-dac and just using the analogue volume on the amp, the sound seems a lot more engaging, so as long as nothing bads happening I'm happy to leave it like this for now. Plus the amp has a -20db mode on it.

[Bluedroog]

I had excess gain with a croft and attenuators worked a treat, even better audio flair reduced the gain for me but the principle is the same but without compromise.

+1 on Goldenjacks over Rothwell, essentially the same product at half the price with none of that 'hi-fi jewery' crap to justify overpriced rothwells. Iain fromGoldenjacks is also a pleasure to deal with.