Placette Passive Owners...

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?

Howie, the power amp was a Classe Omega Reference, and yes it went from a previously balanced connection to single ended. I forgot to mention that bit in my original post. I am still a little surprised that the performance of the Placette would differ that significantly in another system.

Howie - I had tried a number of tube and SS pre-amps over the years (from $2,500.00 to $8,500.00) and found the Placette most musically satisfying in my system. However, the Joule-Electra was recommened by a few people and I bought one sight/sound unseen/unheard. I'd done this before and was always able to sell for a small loss if not happy; however, the Joule is staying - it's superb. I do miss the Placette's excellent remote volume control and was curious if anyone used it as such and not as the line stage.