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Lightspeed Attenuator - Best Preamp Ever?

The question is a bit rhetorical. No preamp is the best ever, and much depends on system context. I am starting this thread beacuase there is a lot of info on this preamp in a Music First Audio Passive...thread, an Slagle AVC Modules...thread and wanted to be sure that information on this amazing product did not get lost in those threads.

I suspect that many folks may give this preamp a try at $450, direct from Australia, so I thought it would be good for current owners and future owners to have a place to describe their experience with this preamp.

It is a passive preamp that uses light LEDs, rather than mechanical contacts, to alter resistance and thereby attenuation of the source signal. It has been extremely hot in the DIY community, since the maker of this preamp provided gernerously provided information on how to make one. The trick is that while there are few parts, getting it done right, the matching of the parts is time consuming and tricky, and to boot, most of use would solder our fingers together if we tried. At $450, don't bother. It is cased in a small chassis that is fully shielded alloy, it gets it's RF sink earth via the interconnects. Vibration doesn't come into it as there is nothing to get vibrated as it's passive, even the active led's are immune as they are gas element, no filaments. The feet I attach are soft silicon/sorbethane compound anyway just in case.

This is not audio jewelry with bling, but solidly made and there is little room (if any) for audionervosa or tweaking.

So is this the best preamp ever? It might be if you have a single source (though you could use a switch box), your source is 2v or higher, your IC from pre-amp to amp is less than 2m to keep capaitance low, your amp is 5kohm input or higher (most any tube amp), and your amp is relatively sensitive (1v input sensitivity or lower v would be just right). In other words, within a passive friendly system (you do have to give this some thought), this is the finest passive preamp I have ever heard, and I have has many ranging form resistor-based to TVCs and AVCs.

In my system, with my equipment, I think it is the best I have heard passive or active, but I lean towards prefering preamp neutrality and transparency, without loosing musicality, dynamics, or the handling of low bass and highs.

If you own one, what are your impressions versus anything you have heard?

Is it the best ever? I suspect for some it may be, and to say that for a $450 product makes it stupidgood.
pubul57
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
Hi Paul, I can answer a few points for you.
1: Nobody as far as I know uses the NSL32SR2S "S" donates selected versions of the NSL32SR2 which are far more uniform and far more expensive.
2: As far as I know nobody does matched quad sets, as this is exponentially harder to do than matched pairs, matched quads gives far better min volume level, a better logarithmic feel when in use, and more stable i/o impedances.
3: All the NSL's need to be potted together for balance stability, this is not mentioned at all with the others.
4: Some of the others, especially the ones from Asia are using a fixed series resistor (instead of a NSL) with only one NSL shunted to ground, this was my first MkI version and though still better than any volume potentiomer (pot) was clearly bettered with the MkII version which was a quad matched sets, all my MkI's were recalled 5 years ago and converted to MkII's because they clearly sounded better.

Cheers George
pubul57 OP
3,712 posts
 
Thank you George, it did not seem Uriah was doing doing the same thing, and set himself up to try to provide the DIY community with parts to build their own Lightspeed-inspired derivatives - which I imagine can sound quite good in the right setting. While appreciate the buffer, remote, and switching approaches that others have tried to add, I suspect you only really get the uncompromised LSA (sorry, we do that here) sounds used as you have designed it in a system with the right source and amp requirements - the rest come at a sonic cost I'm not willing to pay. But if I found a remote controlled, buffered preamp with multiple inputs, preferably RCA and Balanced that sounded as good as the LSA, I would buy it, but I have not found it yet.
pubul57 OP
3,712 posts
 
...though teak would be nice:)
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
Teak does not shield against rf, it maybe a step forward in glitz, but a step backward in sound quality.

One day I may do a remote and have a retrofit scheme for present Lightspeed Attenuators, but it would have to be a quality one, not those chintzy Chinese made ones that people are using that would come back and bite me in warranty claims.

Cheers George
banquo363
371 posts
 
I've been playing around with interconnects and note that the LSA really responds to changes. I was having the LSA drive a 12 foot run of blue jeans cable into my rm10 amp. Sounded good to me...until I moved some stuff around which allowed me to put in a 3 foot cable I had. Much, much better--I'm pretty satisfied with them in fact. However, I can't leave my equipment as it is, so decided to buy a 6 foot (the shortest I can use if I leave my rack where it is) Mogami 2534 cables. Not good. The mogamis are supposed to have low capacitance, so I'm wondering what the issue is.

What cables are people using with the LSA? I'm cheap, so nothing over $350. Also, have people noted the differences in sound depending on length? I can't imagine the 3 foot cable I used is better constructed than the mogamis (although they do have nice locking terminations) so I infer it must be the length that's the culprit.

I'm thinking about trying the Tempo Electric silver cables. Any comments on those?

Another point to note is the following. I bought a 2 foot Soundsilver cable (gold and silver) to connect my source to the LSA. I noted that it sounds much better using itthat way than using it to connect LSA to amp. I would have thought my cd player could easily drive a longer cable and the that the LSA would benefit from driving the shortest length, but that turns out not to be the case for me. Why?
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