rewiring preamp will it work

just heard back from Cary:

"Hey Ron,
Since the output of the AES-3 is buffered with a follower, I see no reason why it wouldn't work. You certainly couldn't drive a pair of headphones from that output, but it would work into the input of a headphone amp"

Sounds like a plan! Given the 24x ratio, and the info Mingles provided that there is no output coupling capacitor, and the response from Cary, I think you'll be fine.

Concerning splitters, opinions tend to be divided. FWIW my own opinion is that it is very likely that using an external splitter would be sonically indistinguishable from modifying the preamp to do the split internally. So I think that Viridian's suggestion is a good one. Here are some additional splitter alternatives, from Audioquest (the second and third of the three items shown).

If for any unforeseen reason you find that having both signal paths connected at once compromises the sound quality of either, HifiHarv's suggestion of a switchbox would be a reasonable fallback approach, IMO. The DB Systems DBP-2JAU/5 would be a good choice, IME/IMO. See the nearby links labelled "photo" and "review" for more information on it. You would connect it in "reverse," with the preamp going to the jacks labelled "Output," and the two amps going to two pairs of "Input" jacks. But again, I don't think that a switchbox will be necessary.

Regards,
-- Al

Does anyone know anything about high quality balanced splitters, particularly solid ones?