[anubisgrau]

I'm wondering if anyone tried this combination - NOH directly into ATC active monitors. I have 20 ASL but I think the amps in all ATCs has pretty similar characteristics. Input sensitivity is 1V and impedance greater than 10,000 ohm.

I do extremely like ATC speakers for their lack of any colorations, however they seem to be extremely sensitive to preamp matching. I have never heard them with TVCs and I am wondering if this would be a good idea. What I am looking for is to avoid them sounding lean and dry as they usually do with SS, and make them rather musical and involving.

The cables I run are 5 meters Kimber PBJ, balanced (ATCs work well with cheap wires).

If this can give some promising results, is there a decent inexpensive CDP that TVCs like - my budget is currently pretty ruined and I might have not more than 500e for new or s/h, maybe even less.

[Hogg]

The ATC preamps' output is between 7.5 v and 15 v.  That's plenty to drive 5 meter cables.  I doubt a passive can do this with a volt or so from the CDP.

                                                                Jim

[John Chapman]

Hello!

Quick follow up to this thread. To drive long cables what we want is a nice low output impedance. The actual voltage output spec does not tell us much about how much 'drive' the output stage of a pre-amp has. In this example the ATC only takes 1V approx to reach full output - a rather loud listenning level I'd guess! This means when using a pre-amp capable of much more than 1V out that you'd never use this extra voltage capability - the amps would clip long before the voltage out of the pre-amp raised to it's max spec.

Where voltage does factor in with a TVC is at the source. To get a nice low output impedance the tvc is best run a few steps down from the top volume setting - that is where the transformer ratio really starts to 'kick in' and drive output impedance way down. If you are normally listenning at least a few steps from the top volume level then the tvc will be doing a good job of driving cables, etc. If the sources output voltage is at least what the amp takes to reach full level then you'll normally be in that zone.

Once again I am making it sound more complex than it really is..... In the vast majorities of source / amp combinations the specs work out just fine.

Thansk!

John