[giannettino]

Hi to all
from a couple of days i'm listening to my Ref 9 SE and an old "The mod squad de luxe" the result is very interesting..a deep bass, a very large and stable soundstage, very good dynamic..usually i feed my amps with a Tact 2.0 AA..a little bit cold and "light" to my ears.
Someone has similar experience?

Grazie..and, please, forgive my English
Gianni

[Albireo]

I've never heard either preamp you listed, but I have an active Bel Canto PRe3, a customized passive Placette Audio Remote Volume Control, and both my DACs have a degree of volume attenuation. All sound great into my Reference 8.02, although I can see why a DAC-direct route might sound a little too transparent. The PRe3 adds density and even greater extension at the frequency extremes, and the Placette adds a smidgeon of midrange body. One of the great advantages of NuForce amps is that I can effectively ignore them when trying out my other components because they have very little character of their own.

Enjoy!

[John Casler]

I have run the NuFORCE Ref 9's with the Stan Warren SUPERPHON Rev III "buffer stage" and was totally blown away.

It had the bass and majesty of SS, and the full midrange of tubes, with all the detail and none of the edge.

I can't imagine too many Passive Line stages (or preamps) surpassing that perfromance.

Had all the best qualities of tubes and SS in one package.

If there is a downside (which there wasn't in my system) it might be that with very inefficient speakers, you might need to use much of the volume control, but I don't remember going much beyond 1:30 or 2:00. (and still with great clairity and effortless dynamics)

[Halfdeaf]

Actually, I've been looking for a good passive preamp/attenuator to use in my system.

My preamp (and turntable/CD/tuner/tapes) is located 20 ft away from my Ref 9 amps, which are next to my TV.  I'd like to get a new DVD/Universal player for the video and locate it with the amps, but I need a volume control, and ideally a switching function betwixt the player and my system (or different RCA/XLR for each)...

[ As an aside, it's good to see Stan Warren is still around - I kinda miss the ol' carefree days of PS Audio...]