Placette Passive Owners...

I have an Audio Research SP8 preamp and run it to a Placette Passive with a 1/2 meter Coincident I/C. I A/B compared it to not having the Placette in the signal path, and my ears could not discern a difference.

I chose to put the Placette b/t the SP8 and the amp because I also run a turntable into the SP8 and did not want to have the phono signal going into the placette before it gets to the phono stage in the SP8. I also have a Wadia 861 going directly into the Placette without going through the SP8 at all.

Bottom line is that I believe the Placette, when used with appropriate I/Cs, is virtually transparent.

In an experiment to prove its transparency, Placette actually recommends you placing the unit between your preamp and amps to see if you hear a difference in sound. Then you take out your preamp and then insert it back in between the Placette and amps to see if you now hear a difference. I don't know why you want to put another preamp in your signal chain but I probably would place it after your active preamp and have the Placette attenuate the volume.

Anyways, Like Mike said, as long as the cables connecting the Placette to the amps is short, then you won't have any problems. With a short interconnect from Placette to amps and a long interconnect from source to Placette, your system should sound as it should. But have it the other way around and use a short interconnect from source to Placette and a long interconnect from the Placette to the amps, and you'll suffer the loss of dynamics that is associated with passive preamps.

So judging from the results of my cable experiments described above, it was simply logical and really a requirement for me to place them close to the amps. Lengths from source to the Placette doesn't really matter so much and really minimizes inconveniences as you don't have to worry about keeping your sources close to the Placette.

I'm confident that placing the Placette in between the your active preamp and amps wouldn't do much to the sound, ie. the Placette will be transparent. What I am wondering is whether placing the Placette in between the source and active pre would improve the sound compared to the sound you get without the Placette. I am interested in hearing the results from your own experiments.

Howie,

i assume that your reason to have the Placette RVC between the source and active pre would be to add the remote feature. otherwise, there will be no benefit (it may not hurt but can't help the performance).

in my experience i can't hear the Placette RVC in or out when properly used.....OTOH it doesn't 'help'....it just 'is'.

i am not saying that the Placette doesn't have a sound.....just that so far i've not heard it in pretty resolving systems.

to answer your question; i never tried it between a source and an active pre.....it just never occured to me to try it. the closest i got was when i used it wih the Tenor OTL integrated's.....which was what caused me to go the Placette RVC way in the first place.

I had an interesting experience taking the Placette out of my system and inserting into another system, between a CDP with volume control and a power amp. Interestingly, no matter how much gain (up to 4 v) we fed the Placette from the CDP, we could barely get any level out of the speakers. Upon further review we found a couple of differences between my system and the other system - the other power amp had a less friendly input impedance, and the speakers were far less efficient (though very good!) than mine. I guess my experiment confirms what was said above, and in some other A'Gon threads - passives are extremely sensitive to downstream cables and components.

Mike,

If the Placette is placed between source and the active preamp, wouldn't the active preamp be responsible for volume control in this scenario? I understand that having the Placette placed after the active preamp can make the active preamp function as a sort of switchbox.

I really am interested in knowing why you're thinking of this configuration TomRyan.

Sdatch, what poweramp was this? In this other system that did not work well, did the system go from a previously single ended connection to balanced connection or vice versa?