Lightspeed Attenuator - Best Preamp Ever?

fwiw: after some more hours of testing, I've confirmed to my satisfaction my initial observations.

First, the appearance of a difference in volume persists. The wallwart renders the LSA brighter and moves the stage forward, and I believe this is, in addition to increase in distortions, what I'm interpreting as a difference in loudness. Depending on one's system, I can see how someone could favor the wallwart. It seems livelier. YMMV.

However, with respect to transient response and transparency, the TeraDak is the clear and obvious winner IMO. My wallwart blurs transients and obscures the rhythmic qualities across all genres of music I tested: jazz, rock, folk, and classical. Choral work is more articulate.

Keep in mind that the deficiencies I note are relative to a side by side comparison with the TeraDak. Which is to say, I certainly didn't notice them in the 3 years that I've used the wallwart with LSA. (Or perhaps I noted them, but blamed other parts of my system?)

At any rate, in the end I'm with Lacee: my wallwart days are over. The question whether a linear wallwart is as good as the TeraDak is of theoretic interest to me, but I'll leave those questions for people like George to answer.

For $60 shipped, I see little reason to not hold such theoretical questions in abeyance and see for oneself.

I can't recall if I said this or not, but the LSA with the TeraDak is like it's been given steroids.
It's performance is enhanced,it's not about noise,I never noticed any noise from the LSA before.

It is about increased sound and clarity however,and more meat on the bones.

As much as George feels that there's not much need for fancy power supplies and power cords,until he tries that combination he is just as sceptical as the folks who don't put any faith in upgraded fuses, power cords or conditioning.

I get it.
Most designers feel they've built the perfect mousetrap and it's as good as it can get, and everything said to make it better is looked upon with a bit of doubt.

I've gotten similar response from amp manufacturers when I stated a fuse swap to a HiFi Supreme made for a richer experience.

It's got to be somewhat irritating when the folks in the cheap seats are making such claims of improved performance,especially when all folks like me can lay claim to are just personal opinions,albeit opinions based on hands on experience rather than speculation.We aren't smart enough to build such devices,and my hat is off to George and all the other talented people who do make all this great stuff,but nothing that I have ever listened to has ever been exempt to improvements somewhere in the chain.

Sometimes it costs the big bucks some times it can be cheap.
The TeraDak falls in the latter category,and I can't say if a linear power supply or a battery pack is as good or better than the TeraDak.

The point some of us are making is that we are so happy with the increased level of performance the TerDak makes that it's just pointless to experiment any further and that there isn't much to be saved in doing so and maybe more to be lost.

George no one is saying the LSA is inferior or defective.
I see I am not alone in stating that I was completely satisfied with the sound with the wallwart I was using.
If it was SMP or linear didn't matter to me,I thought and still think the LSA is the cleanest least coloured volume control I've used.
The TerDak just makes it even more so.

If the TeraDak involved altering the LSA or cost several times more money I never would have given it a second thought and would have listened to the LSA as I have been doing, and enjoying every minute of it.

If this was kept a deep dark secret,and George wasn't a decent fellow,he could have incorporated the TerrDak into his design and sold it for several hundred dollars more as a LSA MK11.
But George isn't like that,he let us know that this looked on paper to be another alternative to a wallwart that should work fine.
Maybe someday George will try one and report back.
As simple as it must be for George to assume that the TeraDak is almost overkill for the demands of the LSA,what I hear is more quality than quantity.

The power demands of anything in this hobby are fickle.
Some low power amps sound great in the right circumstances and sometimes there's a need for the big muscle amps.

But in my experience,everything can be crippled if not given the best power it can handle.
And providing the best power mostly means doing the things that shouldn't make a difference.

Hi Lacee, I like the Teradac, that's why I posted it up for Lightspeed owners to try, as we are always wanting to try out different things.

An smp wall wart will not give noise that you can hear, but it can be seen on the ocilloscope as very high frequency rubbish, and it gets through every thing in the system. What this does to the sound is anyones guess.

What I want to get down too is if the Teradac power supply was compared to a smp wall wart or linear. So far no one has been able to say without question.

Cheers George

Lacee and Banquo,
Come on guys, if you won't tell us, or find out, whether you were using an smp wall wart or linear, maybe you could tell us the brand and model number so we can look it up??

It's funny that I'm on the other side of the upgraded power supply debate on this one, because I upgrade all of my power supplies and power cords, but I just don't see how this teradak would be an upgrade over the battery pack. It just seems logical to me that if it's a linear power supply, and your power supply isn't introducing noise into your system, then you would'nt gain anything here.

George states "A 300mA wall wart will power 6 x Lightspeeds. So it's not a question of power, thicker wires or getting more current to the Lightspeed. ".

I have been thinking about buying a wall wart to back up my battery for those times when I forget to shut off my battery pack, now I'll get a terra dak and compare it to my battery pack. I must say though, I don't like the idea of buying another upgraded power cord for the terra dak but whatever.

B_limo: several posts ago, I already linked to the wall wart that I own. George speculated that it is an smp. I've searched and searched and there's no published info to confirm or deny. George suggests the AM radio test, but I'm not buying an AM radio just to do this test. To be blunt, I have little motivation, since the differences between my wall wart and the TeraDak are so clear. If, theoretically, there shouldn't (couldn't?) be much difference between linear power supplies, then the conclusion to draw is that I must own a smp wall wart. If someone wants a stronger argument then that, well, they can try it out for themselves--as you have suggested you will with your battery supply.

fyi: for my tests, I used a cheap hospital grade power cord. Whether one could do even better with a better cord, I'll leave that to those with deeper pockets than I to determine.