Preamp Deal of the Century

dracule1:

i don't own a cabernet (yet), but clipsal owns the dual and uses it with 94dB sensitivity speakers. i don'ta recall seeing him ever complain about it being noisy. if i can ever convince mick to finish my cabernet, i'll be using it with von schweikert dB99 SE speakers.

Hi Dracule1,

Originally the Cabernet Dual was noisy as I noticed it had a quite a bit of hum coming from the power supply. Amazingly, after placing the Dual on my new Audiav Crystal Rack, the noise has completely vanished (dead quiet). Go figure ?

In terms of background noise coming from the speakers, it might be wise to adjust the gain on the amplifier. Similar to the feature on Mick's amplifiers. My amplifier was hand made by a guy here in Sydney, so I just went there again and asked him to retrofit an adjustable gain and feedback control for each of the mono-blocks. This then allows one to perfectly tune the pre-amp to the amplifiers.

Thus, after having the adjustable gain incorporated, I just turned down the gain a little from the default factory setting on the amplifier and wollah, NO hum or noise from the speakers. Btw, the speakers in the current incarnation are around 98 DB sensitivity.

Thanks for the reply Clipsal and Kgturner. Can't the gain on the Dual be adjusted?

Dracule1

Only the gain for the 6H30 section (Bass) can be adjusted NOT the 101D.

Hmm.. the 6moons review of the dual shows a picture of a dial at the back of the preamp for mid/treble gain. Did Mick delete this feature?