Preamp Deal of the Century

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?

Srajan's reviewed a older version of the Cabernet Dual. The review version used the 6sn7 tube for the low frequency. The most recent version (manufactured Dec '07) uses a 6H30 for the low frequency stage. There is a master control pot on the front of the chassis and a low frequency pot on the top of the chassis in between the 6H30 tubes. On the rear of the unit there are no gain controls, just a switch for xlr or RCA output.