[Brinkman]

I was wondering if it's considered poor practice to have a line-stage, such as the Clarinet, driving a headphone amplifier.

Despite being an extra component in the signal path, this would provide additional gain, allow me to jumper the volume control on the Castanet, as well as drive a powered subwoofer.

Would the Clarinet overload the Castanet? Assume the source is something like the Cornet2.

Thanks!

[Theo]

I was wondering if it's considered poor practice to have a line-stage, such as the Clarinet, driving a headphone amplifier.

Despite being an extra component in the signal path, this would provide additional gain, allow me to jumper the volume control on the Castanet, as well as drive a powered subwoofer.

Would the Clarinet overload the Castanet? Assume the source is something like the Cornet2.

Thanks!

Well, this is not an answer to your question, but it's sort of a wild thought.

I also found my Castanet does not have enough gain for my HD650 driven from PC source. I have a Piccolo sitting idle after I switched to a MM cartridge.  How about adopting a Piccolo before a Castanet?  I can always customized my Piccolo for 3 or 6dB gain for this purpose, but which loading value should I use?

[Brinkman]

U

  How about adopting a Piccolo before a Castanet?  I can always customized my Piccolo for 3 or 6dB gain for this purpose, but which loading value should I use?

The input impedance of the Cornet2 is 47K. It's output impedance is 1K. It's gain is 44dB.

The input impedance of the Clarinet is 100K. It's output impedance is 3K. It's gain is 15dB.

The output impedance of the Piccolo is fixed at a low 300 ohms. It's input impedance (loading) is a variable control. So is it's gain.

If I was using the Piccolo as a line stage (and I personally wouldn't), I would just choose an input impedance setting traditionally found in line stages (50K-100K seems right) with a gain factor which takes into account any gain stages upstream.

In other words, the Piccolo's gain could be anywhere from 3-15dBs depending on the output voltage of a given phono cartridge, the gain of the phone pre-amp used with it, or the output voltage of some other source, such as a CDP or DAC. We just don't want to exceed the 3Vrms max input of the Castanet.

[Brinkman]

I also meant to answer my own question...

My current phono stage only has a gain of 30dB, so if I threw the Clarinet in the mix, my total gain would be 45dB. Almost equal to the 44dB of the Cornet2. So I should be fine.

The output voltage of my CDP is .6Vrms. Through the gain of the Clarinet, the max voltage output would be about 3.4Vrms. So easing down the volume of the Clarinet should keep me under the 3.0Vrms max input to the Castanet.