[Niteshade]

Our new Constellation Passive Preamplifier!







Every detail was thought out precisely. Form and function meet perfectly with out new model. Our volume control is well known for it's silky smooth action and linear travel. Link capacitors were installed to prevent DC from entering an amplifier's inputs. Use with either a tube or solid state amplifier.

[roymail]

Very nice!  Love the wood enclosure.  I'm curious what attenuators you tried when you were doing the workup on this passive?  And, which specific attenuators did you select?

[Niteshade]

The attenuator is made by Alpha. I started using them for my projects back in high school and kept on because those high school projects are STILL working! Alpha makes the best attenuators. The good news: If it starts getting noisy in 20 years, it can be sprayed. Then it will work for another 20!

[guest1632]

The attenuator is made by Alpha. I started using them for my projects back in high school and kept on because those high school projects are STILL working! Alpha makes the best attenuators. The good news: If it starts getting noisy in 20 years, it can be sprayed. Then it will work for another 20!

I read somewhere or other that the Alpha pots have a poor QC as far as tracking both channels. So do you go through your pots to check consistence between pots? Or is what I was told garbage. I know you use Linear taper which might resolve a lot of these problems.

Ray Bronk

[pardales]

Really sweet looking instrument! Love the wood enclosure. 

[Niteshade]

Tracking is remarkably precise. In fact, I never had an issue with this particular model. Zero defects to date. I have been told my circuit works much better than most attenuator circuits in a wide variety of situations.

[roymail]

Blair, as you know I have an affection for quality passive designs.  What is unique about this one other than the link caps which probably don't effect the sonics?

It doesn't appear to be a shunt to ground... ? 

[Niteshade]

You're right- It is not a shunt to ground setup. A customer of mine has a shunt-based attenuator and prefers mine because it has better range (no sudden volume increases or decreases) and it works well with all his gear, whether it's tube or solid state. My passive works well with high output sources too. So far, he hasn't found any short comings with it.

[pardales]

You're right- It is not a shunt to ground setup. A customer of mine has a shunt-based attenuator and prefers mine because it has better range (no sudden volume increases or decreases) and it works well with all his gear, whether it's tube or solid state. My setup works well with high output sources too. So far, he hasn't found and short comings with it.

Having owned one of Blair's integrated amps in the past, I can attest to the fact that he makes a good volume control that tracks well and gives one really good control.