Bypassing A Preamp With Volume Pot In Amp

«Georgelofi» LSA acts as a conventional resistance, with respect to the set of impedances?
Changing interconects not scare me, but adjust the volume behind the amp, yes. Unless you have great discipline when it comes to listening volume.

@Jetrexpro: Can you please tell us about your experience and opinion with having the Goldpoint stepped attenuator in your amp. Did you use a preamp before the Goldpoint? What are the benefits and detriments of the Goldpoint attenuator?

I did it! I just finished installing the Khozmo stepped attenuator. It's easy to hear the difference immediately. The sound stage has tremendously improved in depth, layering, background noise, focus, and dimension. There's no doubt that this is an upgrade. Considering the cost and effort for installation, the stepped attenuator proves to be major bang for the buck. The Khozmo is using Kimber TCSS wire and a Z-Foil TX2575 resistor per L/R channels @ 50Kohm. I also changed the cheap female RCA plugs for Cardas GRFA so I am unable to accurately measure how much each component helped to improve the sound.

I did notice that the attenuator is turned to 12 o'clock with merely average listening level. Does that mean that 10Kohm resistors would allow for more head room with volume?

No. That is just how the gain structure worked out. Reducing the value of the control will make it harder for some sources to drive the amp.

06-03-14: C_avila1
I did notice that the attenuator is turned to 12 o'clock with merely average listening level. Does that mean that 10Kohm resistors would allow for more head room with volume?

Head room will remain the same, position will be different, lower. This could psychologically make you think it's got more headroom.

Remember Nelson Pass's quote:
Nelson Pass:
"Quote We’ve got lots of gain in our electronics. More gain than some of us need or want. At least 10 db more.
Think of it this way: If you are running your volume control down around 9 o’clock, you are actually throwing away signal level so that a subsequent gain stage can make it back up.
Routinely DIYers opt to make themselves a “passive preamp” - just an input selector and a volume control.
What could be better? Hardly any noise or distortion added by these simple passive parts. No feedback, no worrying about what type of capacitors – just musical perfection.
And yet there are guys out there who don’t care for the result. “It sucks the life out of the music”, is a commonly heard refrain (really - I’m being serious here!). Maybe they are reacting psychologically to the need to turn the volume control up compared to an active preamp.End Quote"

You may like the 10kohm better it will have better impedance coupling with amps that are down to around 33kohm input impedance, higher than that is no problem.
But your source should be of the industry recognized low output impedance say below 1kohm, usually this means solid state, and only a selected few tube ones.
As there are many weedy tube output sources that are high output impedance, some I've seen that are a ridiculous high 3kohm sometimes 5kohm output impedance and should never be put for sale on the market, these will prefer to see 50kohm pot or even higher.

And if you find you need to use a source switch box, select ones with rotary type selector switch. These tend to have better contacts than push type, you can also put your passive in there as well, this way you can change amps when you need, just use interconnects that are less than <100pf (picofarad) per foot, which most all quality ones are.

Cheers George