Me and the 1210 are gunna have us some me time....

[DSJR]

Sorry if my prior post sounded a bit patronising - quick typing fingers (both of them ) and a need to impart experiences, wanted or not, dictated the result...

I used active 100's for a good few years and used them both with the AVI S2000 preamp in both versions (great high-current, low output impedance single ended output stage designed from the off to drive long signal leads). I then switched to the SCA2 and found it a very "gentlemanly" sound in comparison. The old friend who bought the speakers and preamp from me still uses them daily and recently had the preamp looked at because the phono stage started acting up - connections rather than failure I understand.

These days, there are specialised pro line stages able to drive a balanced set of cables to speakers and Krell/ARC is the LAST place on earth I'd look (overpriced and over-finished male jewellery for the well-off IMO). Something like these -

http://www.tcelectronic.com/bmc-2.asp

http://www.dv247.com/studio-equipmen...troller--52866

I believe there are other units with extra inputs should you need them.

- are really all you need and are properly priced as knowledgeable pros don't buy "foo" products - the ATC SCA2 and matching power amp were for the audiophile fraternity and not the pro market... Electronic components are very cheap (several-a-penny in some cases) and really don't need to cost the earth. Simple line circuits don't seem to need ott power supplies either

As for non-balanced connection to the ATC's, in a domestic environment with often less than 10m each interconnect, a good line buffer is all you'd need. I didn't find the Croft over happy in this mode, although it worked ok at the time and the main reason I mentioned the ML28 (if you can find one) is that when Glenn became absorbed into Eminent Audio and was unreachable for a few years, HiFi Dave looked at Levinson and found the 28 preamp (fully balanced circuit from in to out with carefully matched components) an excellent thing to use..

Cable ferrites? Unnecessary on balanced interconnects (the ATC circuits will self-limit rf in any case) but the mains leads benefitted I remember...

EDIT - The ATC preamp is earthed to the mains and I think the pin 1 on the XLR's is directly connected to the earthing (check the circuit diagram if provided). The speaker amp-packs also connect to earth via their mains leads and ATC used to put a resistor between pin 1 of the XLR (earth/screen) and ground to prevent hum loops. I found that disconnecting the earth pin1 at the speaker end, but leaving it connected at the preamp (and shorted to the return on a phono equipped preamp like the AVI I had) seemed to improve the dynamics a little. As long as the removed wire isn't cut off, it's easily soldered back.