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Need passive aggressive advice

Hello
To scratch an itch of mine I purchased a preowned Placette passive device and now I'm hooked!
Passives are very system dependent as we all know but I'm stoked on what its doing, or should I say, not doing in my Horn/300B system,
Since I can't leave well enough alone, I'm looking at more "modern" passive designs and have narrowed it down to three of them.
1) latest from Tortuga
2) " The Truth" from the Horn Shoppe
3) Axiom with Walker mods
All with remote. A MUST for me.
I'm assuming that they will all surpass the vishay placette in transparency. ASSUMING.

Appreciate any and all suggestions/comments/alternatives.

Thanks for your time

Emil




emil
auxinput
2,920 posts
 

Honestly, I don't think you will do better than the Placette for a standard passive.  It appears to use disrete Vishay S-102 resistors, so it is going to perform pretty much like every other stepped attenuator.  I would say that you could look at passives with a transformer if you wanted something a little different and "colored":

http://remusic.it/EN/Shootout-Test-Eleven-Passive-Preamps-with-Transformers-8e1d2000

By the way, it appears that The Truth preamp is an active device, so it is not really a true "passive".

emil OP
205 posts
 
Thanks, guys
 Seems like the Placette with its Vishays can still holds its own today.

I leaning towards giving the Tortuga a try
https://www.tortugaaudio.com/product/ldr3-v25-passive-preamp/
Its uses what they call  Light Dependent photoResistors ( LDRs) which seems to seperate it from the others.
It also has 3 inputs and 2 outputs as compared to one of each on my Placette.
$1k with 30 day return policy
reubent
7,015 posts
 
@emil - If you try the Tortuga and do not prefer it over your Placette, you can get a Placette passive with multiple inputs and outputs. Mine was a 4-input/1-output version. My buddie's Placette is a 3-input/2-output version.

Good Luck! I hope you find everything you are looking for....
ghosthouse's avatar
ghosthouse
4,314 posts
 
For $700 bucks you could try a Schiit Freya or Saga for $349. Schiit does allow returns albeit with a restocking fee. The Freya provides pure passive, JFET unity gain, or tube (13 db gain) modes and is a balanced design though it will also accept SE inputs and has both SE and balanced output. Very flexible. Very quiet...even in tube mode with volume all the way up and nothing playing - dead silent with ear at the speaker. Just be sure to get some 6SN7s that have been tested for noise; not all 6SN7s are created equal. Good luck in your decision.

http://www.schiit.com/products/freya
rodge827's avatar
rodge827
620 posts
 
Emil,
I had  Ed's Truth Preamp and would purchase one again if needed. Very clean sounding! I sold mine over on AC since I purchased an integrated 300b and no longer needed it.
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