[Tom Gnade]

Hi All,

seems like this is the place to ask questions about the Promitheus TVC.  I just bought one from Audiogon, it's the very first version produced.  I hooked it up last night and placed it on top of my power amp and it starting humming and buzzing with a blazing 60hz frequency.  I freaked out at first, but then moved it away from my amp and now it just hums a little.

Then I turned on my CD player and got blown out of my seat.  I have this thing on what I think is the very lowest setting, and the volume is outrageously loud.  It's set one notch away from the position that cuts out the sound entirely, at "6 o'clock" on the dial.  If I turn the knob, it gets even louder.  I'm scared to experiment, I can hear my speakers on the edge of distortion already.

PS Audio P300 Power Plant >
Rega Apollo CD player >
Promitheus TVC >
Sugden A21ap >
Boston Acoustics VR3

The Rega puts out 2V rms peak to peak, standard output for a digital front end.  It has 600 ohm output impedance and runs pure class A.  The TVC is set at what I believe is -40dB, it's lowest setting.  The Sugden has 47kOhm input impedance and 0.6mV sensitivity.  It produces just 25WPC at full output, pure class A.  The Bostons are 93db sensitive 2.8V 1M, what I would call medium-high efficiency.  With these settings, why would I be at maximum volume at -40dB?  Something is wrong, perhaps I'm making a stupid mistake?  From what I could tell, the sound was stupid good.  Unfortunately I have to put my fingers in my ears to bear it.  I apparently like a much lower listening level than the average joe?  Help please.  My current conclusion is that I have to sell the unit and find something that's a better match for my system, very sad.

Thanks in advance...

[milpai]

You must have reversed the connections. That is - you must have connected CDP's output to TVC's output, instead of input. Or else you must have a TVC version with 6db gain. Check the connections first or email Nicholas. There was another poster a couple of months back who had the same issue as yours. Apparently he had the high gain version of TVC. What is the sensitivity of your amp?

[Tom Gnade]

Yeeeehaw.  I figured that out last night.  Flipped input and output and everything is working just swell now.  Thanks for the tip.  I suppose I just wasn't thinking about the fact that a transformer will work either direction - most preamps wouldn't work at all if you reversed the connections - for that matter most of them have labels too! =)

[fvale]

Good Tom. It sounded strange to me a problem with the TVC as its reliability is, obviously, very high!
Could you post your listening impressions after few tens of listening hours?
Which preamplifier did you use before?