[corndog71]

Only one down side: price.  I'm building another Bottlehead Quickie preamp and thought this would be an awesome addition to it.  I prefer the use of dual mono controls as it's tough to get matching pairs of the tubes in the Quickie.

It's a shame nobody has made an ldr kit with some sort of balance feature.  I would have to spend nearly a grand on these volume controls in order to get the flexibility that I need.

[Rclark]

Tell you what Jackman, I'd be more than willing to trade for a week. Just dont let me battery get low.

[jackman]

Tell you what Jackman, I'd be more than willing to trade for a week. Just dont let me battery get low.

Are you near Chicago?  I am always up for a demo and would be happy to let you try my preamp.  If not, I will put the word out to local folks.  I'm going to have a get-together when Phil Bamberg finishes his Series 6 speakers.  Maybe that would be a good time to test preamps.  I enjoy your enthusiasm and I'm sorry for being rude in my message.  Your comments did not warrant my response.

Cheers,

J

[doug s.]

That would be true if I hadn't done research too. I was scared to post my review but everyone else's experience matches mine, people with far more experience than me. So there's nothing wrong with my statements and I stand by them.  LDR's are simply better than other means of volume control.

 I think I understand your rancor, you own one of the pre's that someone dropped for this ldr. Not a cheap device either.

I am as honest as I can be. I could lie and say, OH SURE, I've heard dozens of pieces of gear. I am merely relating my experience. The device isn't good, it's flipping awesome. I have seriously no interest in a pre after this. Give me a good reason I should? If you could hear what I hear, you'd understand.

Far more interested in stepping up my amps, dac, and doing treatments. If I get a chance to try out another conventional pre, sure, I'll give it a go! This is my hobby and I love trying new stuff, but I won't actively search for one anymore.

I have heard other pre's before, obviously, I don't live on an island, but I can only relate what is in my system. Trust me, if I were even slightly dissatisfied, I'd be on the hunt for a pre, you can believe that.

rclark, i highlighted the part of your statement that i agree with.  imo, due to the way these ldr's work, any design that gets the calibration right, will sound identical.  so, either diy, or buy an off-the-shelf iteration that is cheap and cheerful, and has the features you want.  for me, that was remote control.

i would have rather paid less than the $400 for my eva-2, but i doubt my skills at building one, that incorporates remote, would have come out much cheaper.  diyparadise used to offer a single-input eva which was ~$300 shipped; i woulda jumped on it, but they say it's no longer being made.

there's no way i am ever gonna give up an active preamp - i love the sound and the features of my melos pre.  the dynamics, extension and bloom from a quality active preamp cannot be duplicated by any passive, imo.  i need 6 inputs, i need dual mono and separate l/r wolume pots, and i need the two tape loops.  having the ldr pots do the wolume control remotely, besides being more user friendly than the melos remote, which controls each channel together, and not accurately, is ergonomic heaven - i simply max out the melos' pots, slightly adjusted for perfect balance, and then use the eva-2 for gain control.  the fact that the ldr pots made a wery transparent preamp even more transparent, was icing on the cake.

for anyone wanting ldr wolume control, i recommend it heartily - whether you wanna integrated it w/an active preamp, or go completely passive.  nothing will be more transparent.  my melos pre used to have one built-in - it was one of the reasons the melos ma333r sha-gold-r pre's sound so good.  but, they were wery unreliable in their configuration - shipping would upset the wery finicky calibration necessary for them to track properly.  mine was replaced w/a tube potentiometer; according to melos, it was the next best thing, but it obviously was not good enough.

but, unless there's some reason you are enamoured of the look/feel/egonomics of the warpspeed, there is no reason to spend a lot of money on one of these, regardless of whether you want remote, added inputs, balance controls, etc.  the extra money spent will not affect the sonics.  imo of course.

links to some more info from the diyparadise site:
http://diyparadise.com/web/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=143&Itemid=26

http://diyparadise.com/web/projectsto-keep-you-busy-mainmenu-26/147-beautiful-eva#comments

besides diyparadise, as noted, there are other diy ldr plans & kits out there.  mebbe bob (bfitz) will post up some of his ideas for diy'ers... 


until mark porzilli re-opens a melos repair center and (re)installs dual-mono remote-control ldr's inside my preamp, my eva-2 ain't going anywhere.

doug s.

[Rclark]

(Jackman) oh no you're fine, and I can see your point as well, I had just hoped that you understand that my desire is to have a supreme system, and I think on the pre side of things I nailed it early on. Looking at Ncore mono's right now as my second real amp, and I will be in a similar situation there too, in ownership of something gobsmackingly good, but without much reference to compare.

I live in the Seattle area. I thought we might ship to each other, if you want. I'm game.

Reading Doug's now.

[doug s.]

Tell you what Jackman, I'd be more than willing to trade for a week. Just dont let me battery get low.

oh ya - another requirement for me - no battery.  my system is pretty-much on 24/7.  and, as the power supply circuitry will be isolated from the ldr side, it is not necessary...

doug a.

[doug s.]

Only one down side: price.  I'm building another Bottlehead Quickie preamp and thought this would be an awesome addition to it.  I prefer the use of dual mono controls as it's tough to get matching pairs of the tubes in the Quickie.

It's a shame nobody has made an ldr kit with some sort of balance feature.  I would have to spend nearly a grand on these volume controls in order to get the flexibility that I need.

build dual pots into your bottlehead, max them out, w/fine tuning for gain, and then use an ldr preamp between it and your amps.  or, if you don't want/care about remote control, simply build two separate l/r channel ldr wolume pots into your bottlehead...

doug s.

[Rclark]

I hear ya Doug  that's why I also said earlier that for those with more sophisticated. Needs, they could have a pre like yours but still have the ldr doing the volume.

I leave mine permanently attached to the charger. I know Allan said no but Danny Richie says the Ctek's smart chargers are perfectly fine to leave attached and won't cause any damage. I haven't had any problems.

[jackman]

(Jackman) oh no you're fine, and I can see your point as well, I had just hoped that you understand that my desire is to have a supreme system, and I think on the pre side of things I nailed it early on. Looking at Ncore mono's right now as my second real amp, and I will be in a similar situation there too, in ownership of something gobsmackingly good, but without much reference to compare.

I live in the Seattle area. I thought we might ship to each other, if you want. I'm game.

Reading Doug's now.

Thank but Seattle is too far to ship.  I'll try to find someone local or call for a demo unit.  It would be fun to do it as part of a get-together with a few beers and some AC people.  Will set it up in a month or so.  Thanks

J

[doug s.]

I hear ya Doug  that's why I also said earlier that for those with more sophisticated. Needs, they could have a pre like yours but still have the ldr doing the volume.

I leave mine permanently attached to the charger. I know Allan said no but Danny Richie says the Ctek's smart chargers are perfectly fine to leave attached and won't cause any damage. I haven't had any problems.

"more sophisticated needs"?  like better sound?     forget about a new dac - it will give marginal improvements at best, even if you spend $10k.  get your ldr passive between a nice tube preamp and your amps, however, and that will give you a big sonic gain, imo...   

doug s.

[jackman]

Sorry, duplicate post.  How do you delete this stuff? 

[Rclark]

yeah but the dac is where the magic happens, besides I need one for the inevitable jump to computer audio.

I get to try the Neko sometime soon, so that's pretty cool.

And by sophisticated I meant, need for inputs or processing, etc. But i have to take your word for it since you do have both. However I figured a nice dac/ldr combo would be my pre system.

[BFitz]

  mebbe bob (bfitz) will post up some of his ideas for diy'ers... 
doug s.

Like Doug, I need more inputs, at least 3 or 4, and really don't like the idea of reaching in back to select them. In some cases may need a balance control. Remote is nice.

I thought about all this stuff, and then thought about how to do it. DIY is the only option, either buy raw LDR's, or someone's kit. I had a few ideas, and starting playing, then ended up with a flexible circuit that met all these requirements. It's in rough form now, but if I get time, I'll do some boards and see where it goes from there. As mentioned before, I like to help other DIY people.

The circuit uses current control to change the volume, which allows for using normal volume controls (no special 3 turn pots required) so Alps motorized pots work fine. They do need to be dual gang though, but gang imbalance *in no way* affects actual channel balance, like it does on a normal pot.
And it also allows for range setting, i.e. low, medium, and high volume, So you could use the entire range of the pot to go from say 0-30% of full volume. To me, this is easier than using a special pot to get fine adjustment of volume at low levels.
 

[doug s.]

yeah but the dac is where the magic happens, besides I need one for the inevitable jump to computer audio.

I get to try the Neko sometime soon, so that's pretty cool.

And by sophisticated I meant, need for inputs or processing, etc. But i have to take your word for it since you do have both. However I figured a nice dac/ldr combo would be my pre system.

hey, i understand wanting a usb dac.  at some point, i may have to go there myself.  but there's not much (if any?) improvement between a good $400 dac/digital system and a good $10k dac/digital system - amhik.     there may be small differences, but actual across-the-board improvements?  not imo..

get yourself a great tube pre, and use the ldr for its gain control...   

doug s.

[corndog71]

The circuit uses current control to change the volume, which allows for using normal volume controls (no special 3 turn pots required) so Alps motorized pots work fine. They do need to be dual gang though, but gang imbalance *in no way* affects actual channel balance, like it does on a normal pot.
And it also allows for range setting, i.e. low, medium, and high volume, So you could use the entire range of the pot to go from say 0-30% of full volume. To me, this is easier than using a special pot to get fine adjustment of volume at low levels.

Does it have to be dual gang?  Could 2 mono pots work?

[Rclark]

Hey Jackman, if you change your mind, just say the word.


Really Doug, so you're saying there'd be no real difference between the xda1 I had before and the Neko I'm gonna try out? Why is that?  $400 to $1500 and I won't notice it? Because to me, it seems like the dac in a system is a big deal.

[doug s.]

Really Doug, so you're saying there'd be no real difference between the xda1 I had before and the Neko I'm gonna try out? Why is that?  $400 to $1500 and I won't notice it? Because to me, it seems like the dac in a system is a big deal.

for redbook cd, there may be differences, (tiny), but not improvements.  i have compared a modded art di/o to spendy stuff, including electrocompaniet, alchemist, resolution audio, squeezebox transporter, empirical audio modded northstar dac, empirical audio pacecar, bolder modded sb2, etc...  comparisons were done on more than one hi-resolution system.

i am not familiar w/hi-rez digital audio, but i would suspect any decent hi-rez capable dac, w/at least 24/176.4 would be sufficient for hi-rez audio.

i do believe in clean power - my digital was improved w/isolation transformers - at the wery least, use one for dac and another for transport...

ymmv,

doug s.

[BFitz]

Does it have to be dual gang?  Could 2 mono pots work?

Sure, if you wanted to do two volume pots, one for each channel, instead of volume and balance, you could easily do it that way too. But each one would still need to be dual gang. One gang controls the upper LDR, the other gang the lower one. The pot generates the 2 voltages that go to the control circuits, which generates the 2 control currents for the upper and lower LDRs. 

[Rclark]

 Huh.... well dang Doug, I'll try out the Neko but looks maybe another area ($) I can squeeze into maybe something more important.

 If it doesn't rip the dac in my cdp a new one I'll be impressed. Shoot, might just buy another XDA-1.

[konut]

Huh.... well dang Doug, I'll try out the Neko but looks maybe another area ($) I can squeeze into maybe something more important.

Make sure the DAC you buy will drive your amp. The Neko only has a 1v output. Very few amps these days are driven to full output by 1v. Most take around 2v. You might want to consider the Bryston BDA-1 which has a superb discrete class A output stage.