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Choosing cables for Passive applications?

I am wondering if anyone has some good experience with passive amp/pre combinations and what cables have worked well.
Personally I am using a Cardas Nuetral Ref.(RCA term) between my CD and Amp (amp has attenuators on back for volume). I have read that the lower capacitance cables work well as they alter the signal less, but many manuf. do not specify the ratings.
Also I noticed that the Nordost cables have MUCH lower capacitance than the Cardas. Would this make them a lot better in my application than the Cardas, at least theoretically?
It's difficult to swap cables around a lot so I'm looking for some pros on the GON!
Thanks
alun
howie
230 posts
 
Another thing is that plagues passives is improper system matching. This, and or long cable lengths can result in the lost of dynamics and a muddied/softened representation. Besides Nordost, there are many cables that will work well in a passive system, it's just that cables that tend to be sharper in focus tend to help compensate for the deficiencies. When done right, passive certainly sounds very good.
psychicanimal
1,738 posts
 
My system uses a passive preamp and the runs are as short as possible (30 inch & 1m) Ridge Street Audio MSE's.
tubelover54de1
1 posts
 
Short lengths and low cap is desired on passives. On my second system, I have the Placette passive line stage connected to a Fourier OTL. I use the Pure Note Cerulean cables that maintain good bass response and speed. Nordost (Valhalla) IME is way to thin and bright.
alun OP
181 posts
 
Thanks for the responses, I haven't been able to get to them for a while so I'm just beginning to experiment. I had recently used an Ayre V5-x preamp in the system and it sounded very good, but when I plugged the CD directly into the amp (using the 6' Cardas) the sound opened up and had even more detail. I am currently awaiting a Monolithic Sound passive/active linestage and I hope it will do as good a job as direct (wishfull thinking) or at least as good as the Ayre. Also for a bit of fun I'm going to try some cables from Canare (Star Quad 4) to begin experimenting.
alun OP
181 posts
 
Wow the Monolithic is a GREAT piece of gear! My wife and I put a tonne of hours on this since we've got it. The beauty of it is we can run passive OR active depending on the position of the volume knob.
It's really quite simple. CD requires NO preamplification circuit at all, whereas the phono, can use a little gain from the preamp, but only when listening at very loud volumes!!! The real amazing thing is that there is little to no difference when going from passive to active.
Is there a catch? YUP no remote!
Anyway, now I can begin my cable experiments.
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