Passive & Tubed pre-amps to power amp at same time?

Al - Have multimeter. Will measure.

Atmasphere - Good one. That would allow me to do what Zd suggested 6 posts above yours. He was thinking my CDP had a volume control (at least, that's how I read it). Re passives' sensitivity to ICs, I assume this would be to ICs on the output side of the pre-amp?

Everyone - thanks. Lots of stuff to try.

More so on the output side than the input, but they are sensitive to the input side as well. As a general rule of thumb keep the cables short!

"Atmasphere - Good one. That would allow me to do what Zd suggested 6 posts above yours. He was thinking my CDP had a volume control (at least, that's how I read it). Re passives' sensitivity to ICs, I assume this would be to ICs on the output side of the pre-amp?"

Sorry. I wasn't mistaken, just confused. I was commenting on a few different threads about digital sources with volume controls. The brands were Esoteric and Wadia. And since they both use Teac transports, I somehow allowed my fingers to get the best of me.

The IC's and the passive would be on the input side of the preamp, not the output. Depending on how much room you have on your shelf, you may be able to get away 1 pair of IC's and 1 pair of jumpers. You'll only need to set the volume on the passive once. After that, you'll just use the one on your preamp. Just put the passive behind the CD player close enough to use jumpers. Also, if you don't have really deep shelves that extend too far behind the components, you can probably get away with a 1/2 meter IC. That will keep the lengths down to a minimum, as well as cost.

Al - Harrison Labs -12dB attenuators arrived today. Running them at the input to my tube pre-amp with CDP as source. They seem to work as advertised. I've picked up (depending on how loud the CD is) 30-60 degrees of additional volume knob rotation to get to my preferred listening level; almost 90 on an older CD that has always seemed "lower volume" to me. So far, I don't notice any negative sonic effects. Thanks very much for the suggestion. I haven't yet made the resistance measurements but will.

Al - Results (all as read) of the measurements you suggested making for the Harrison Labs 12dB attenuators:
Across input/output pins
#1 attenuator 6.77 ohms
#2 attenuator 6.75 ohms
Across ground sleeve & output pin
#1 2.19
#2 2.18
all measurements made using 20K scale setting
FWIW - resistance across input pin to ground sleeve is ~9 (as read, 8.97 & 8.95 respectively).

Al - not sure what multiplier to use for this scale...x10K or x20K?. Let me know if you will. Thanks for your time.