Is preamp remote volume a deal breaker for you?

The standard for balanced line is the output of the device driving the cable should be able to drive 600 ohms or less (in the case of microphones) without degradation (this calls for a fairly low output impedance BTW). If the cable is terminated at the input of the amp with a 600 ohm load, then you will hear no difference between a high end cable and a cheap one, ours, or one from Radio Shack. I saw this demonstrated in spades between our cable (which is Mogami) and a cable that retails for $1000/foot. The customer went back and forth between the cable over a period of 2 weeks until he realized that not only could he not hear any difference, but that the sale of the high end cables got him back most of the cost of his preamp (the cables were 24 feet long). He was ecstatic.

If the termination is not installed, then cable differences appear. Its a simple fact that most high end preamps have a problem driving 600 ohms and so the thought of such a termination 99 44/100% of the time is out of the question. But if it can be done, there will be no artifact of any cable. Now when we introduced the MP-1 back in 1989, it was the first balanced line preamp made. We figured everyone else would support the 600 ohm standard; boy were we wrong!

We installed the remote because people ask for it. Engineering one that does not affect the sound (and also fits in the unit so older preamps can be also updated) was/is the yardstick. Most of the remotes we saw at the time did cause some sort of artifact; I remember one very well-known tube preamp manufacturer that offered their first remote where the degradation was enough that dealers stocked up on the previous model to get away from the remote.

As an audiophile I am one of those that will not sacrifice the sound due to a remote. It does seem like I am the minority these days...

Deal breaker for sure.

I must ask ... can't they just standardize the loudness levels someday?

07-26-11: Atmasphere
The standard for balanced line is the output of the device driving the cable should be able to drive 600 ohms or less (in the case of microphones) without degradation (this calls for a fairly low output impedance BTW). If the cable is terminated at the input of the amp with a 600 ohm load, then you will hear no difference between a high end cable and a cheap one, ours, or one from Radio Shack.... If the termination is not installed, then cable differences appear.

Ralph, I'd be interested in an explanation of why the termination is necessary. Why wouldn't simply driving the balanced cable with a low impedance driver be sufficient? Obviously less current would flow through the cable if the termination is not present, but I'm not sure why that would make a difference.

On an unrelated note, congrats on your re-done website. Looks great!

Dracule -- in my case, not having a remote would not be a deal-breaker. I have one at present, but I could easily live without it, as I did for many years in the past.

Best regards,
-- Al

Hi Al, If you put a 600 ohm resistance across a cable, which has capacitive, inductive and resistive aspects, the outcome is that the 600 ohm resistance becomes the primary aspect of what you are driving. The other things (which normally affect a cable when the amp input impedance is 100K or higher) get 'swamped out'.

This is how all high fidelity recordings are possible, BTW. If you have any recordings from the 1950s, what we have is a recording that sounds better the better you make your system. (Some people think that the best recordings were made in the 1950s). How did they do this without high-end cables? How could they run microphone signals over 200 feet and have them sound anything like HiFi over such a distance? The answer is that they used a low impedance termination on the line.

For example, I have a set of Neumann U-67 microphones. They use a small tube preamp to take the signal from the condenser element. This preamp is only a single triode gain stage- so its output impedance is high. But it drives an output transformer that is set to 150 ohms at its output. So many mic inputs on mixers and tape machines have a low input impedance like this. It allows the mic to drive *stupidly long* cables without any degradation at all, and the cost of the cable is kept to a minimum.

Now maybe I'm a little odd this way, but it seems to me that a system that would allow one to ditch expensive cables in favor of even better sound would be a good thing.

Mind you- if the terminations are not there, the 'better sound' I mentioned could well be lost to cable interaction.

Thanks, Ralph. That all makes sense, as I see it. I would add, though, that the values of those cable parameters, and their effects, will decrease as length decreases. I would therefore expect that in the case of a short cable, say a few feet long, and if the cable is reasonably well designed and is driven from a low impedance balanced output, that those effects would be insignificant both with and without the termination.

Best regards,
-- Al