Music First Audio Passive Magnetic Preamplifiers?

What the Lightspeed showed me that no other resistor designed passive showed me was that a transformer designed passive (Pubul57 bought the K&K from me) can actually compress the sound a bit, especially in the highs. To me this is not problematic and actually contributes to a slightly warmer and pleasing sound. However, it means that a TVC is not necessarily the last word in transparency and neutrality.

Now autoformers are not transformers since they have just a single winding. However, there is some debate among people I trust who make transformers for a living as to whether the Slagle designs are actually autoformers. I won't get into specifics on that discussion here. However, in my comparison of the Lightspeed and Slagle AVC I own, the AVC acted and sounded like my old K&K S&B, just more transparent and neutral, but not as transparent and neutral as the Lightspeed.

The Lightspeed is the king of the hill of passives IMO. If you have a system that matches up well with it you will be extremely surprised at how good it sounds.

I was at the Lone Star Audio Fest and heard a LDR preamp. I was surprised how smooth, transparent, and natural it sounded compared to a tubed preamp. There is a Serbian company that makes a fully functional remote controlled LDR preamp called Myth. It costs around $1700, and I almost bought it. However, factor in $300 for shipping and cost of shipping both ways if something goes wrong is just too much hassle.

Yes the "Myth" this is a blatant rip-off of my Lightspeed Attenuator design, how can one charge $1700 + $300 shipping for just a bit more glitz and a remote is beyond me. I have been asked many times to do a remote model and I figured it to still be under $1K, some people reel back at my $450 shipped price tag, so it will probably never eventuate.

Cheers George

The Myth product has been around and used to use to be referred to as the Myth Lightspeed preamplifier in it's marketing. George Stantschleff pressured them to stop using the reference to Lightspeed and I can validate, having looked into the product myself, that the Myth is as George says, a remote controlled multi-input Lightspeed.

Anyone really interested in the history and variants on the Lightspeed (including a Nelson Pass design) should muddle through the lengthy thread over at DIY.com. You might even be inspired to build one yourself.

George, you have been working on this for a few decades, any ideas cooking on how to make the Lightspeed better yet, or is there nowhere to go at this point? Isn't your idea patentable?