impedence value.? amp to preamp.

The result is that the high output impedance of the volume control, with the high input impedance of the amp, and the character of the interconnect cable itself will result in drive difficulties at low volume, because the source impedance will be primarily the value of the control.

Atmasphere - the resistor attenuator made by EVS seems to have exactly the opposite problem. I.E. a higher volumes the sound might be degraded. Take a look @ the link I provided in my prev post.
The EVS attenuator has a 1K in series & uses shunt resistors to provide the attenuation. So, for any attenuation setting, isn't the effective resistance of the attenuator the parallel combination of the 1K & whatever attenuation setting resistor?
So, for normal volume settings, I see that the shunt resistors are very small in value thereby making the effective resistance this shunt resistor value.
It appears to me that this EVS resistor attenuator is correctly made & will avoid the lack of drive levels at low listening volumes.
You agree?

Bombaywalla, it will help a lot, in one way, but now you have a different problem- drivability. There are very few sources that can drive 2.2K without distortion and/or bandwidth loss!

There really is not a good way to execute a passive volume control without running into some sort of problem like this. TVCs work much better, but have their own issues as well, although IMO far less severe. IMO/IME experience if you really want to do it right, an **properly designed** line stage is the only way to go.

Hi Bob, to really get a passive to work you get into trouble when you get over 10K for a value, even with short cables. That's why you are better off having the control inside the amplifier, or else inside the source (both inconvenient), and buffered from the cable. Even with 10K, the effect can still be heard.

There was a lot of talk about buffered PVCs a few years back, but what we are talking about then is an active without gain.

Hi Atamasphere,

There are some preamp designs that put volume pots at the output. What do you think of them?

I just bought a preamp that uses 100K volume control at the output. It works well with my power amp which has a 500K input impedance. However, it sounds thin with another power amp that has 60K input impedance.

Please comment. Thanks.