The Russian euro15k Wagner Audio Dream Dac dac also uses this volume system for going to poweramp direct. https://www.monoandstereo.com/2016/06/wagner-audio-labs-super-r2r-dac.html Cheers George |
George, not sure where your list of "all those preamps" came from but of those, the Khozmo (i.e., Hattor) is the only one I have owned. I do own McCormack's TLC-1 passive/buffered stage that Steve has upgraded to a much higher level that he calls
"very close to my VRE-1." When I owned that Metrum Adagio DAC with internal VC, I modified the TLC by taking the Shallco VC switch out of the circuit (replaced it by soldering two AN Tantalum silver resistors to the board) thus turning it into a unity gain buffer w/o VC. I did that because, to me, the Metrum DAC sounded noticeably better with the active buffer in the chain, even though the DAC output 4V. I have since moved to Mojo Audio's EVO B4B 21 DAC, which does not have a VC so I added the passive Khozmo unit, which provides remote VC, balance control, and a nice visual display. I have tried running my system with just the Khozmo passive unit but I much prefer the sound with the TLC active buffer also in the playback chain. |
"Since it is equipped with high-class preamp, this player may also double as the heart of a small, but very fine high-end system." Odd that Burmester 089 should have been great direct, as recommended by the manufacturer. As it’s output is a 60 position VC active preamp with a switchable tape input also, as these spec show with 4v low output impedance you defiantly don’t need to run a preamp into another preamp with even more gain from the second preamp. Their must be another reason, preferred additional preamp, coloration perhaps https://www.i-fidelity.net/en/test-reports/high-end/burmester-089/labreport.html Output voltage: 4.1 V Channel deviation: 0.035 dB Output resistance: 256 Ω DC output offset: < 0.5 mV Cheers George |
