Does the volume control effect sound quality?

He was talking about how the volume control has changed the sound. And I say given the same value they all sound different to each other. I believe because of materials used and contact point pressure, given the same value they are the single most worst component that can change the sound in equipment. They are fundamentally flawed. It's just like having loose/dirty rca plugs/sockets if you clean them with contact cleaner (plug and socket) you will hear a massive difference to your sound, and these have ten/hundred times the contact area than the miniscule area a pot has.


Cheers George

Hi George, what isn't flawed in audio? From what I understand, even the LDR preamps have issue with impedance matching, drift, and tolerance (ie, difficult to make a balanced preamp using LDRs). LDR preamps do sound excellent, may even surpass the best resistor or transformer/autoformer based preamp, but I don't think they're for everyone, just as any other passive preamp. But I do appreciate the fact that you popularized this technology for us to enjoy.

He asked "Am i imagining things?" I say no he's not and give him the reasons that's all.
And I'm not saying the Lightspeed Attenuator is the answer, even it doesn't quite sound as good as going direct. In fact I've said many times if you want to hear the truth of what the source is giving, then listen to your source directly pluged into the poweramp with a very quite cd. Then listen at the same level with a pre (active or passive) in the way at the same level, then go with the one that sounds closest to the direct sound. Because this is the one that is least imprinting (colouration/distortion) it's own signature onto the music signal compared to the direct sound, and therefore is the closest to the most transparent sounding eg: (a piece of wire with or without gain)

Cheers George

I don't think anyone on this thread has denied that the volume control makes a difference. However there are engineering principles in play and they are such that if ignored, the result could be that a $4.00 volume control from Radio Shack can sound better than the best light-activated volume control system available.

There are plenty of other situations where that is likely not the case. IOW this cannot be taken out of context- the parameters of the surrounding circuits cannot be ignored. So if a light activated device is to be used, it would have to be one that is designed for the circuit.

Here is a good article for those who are interested to see how much their active preamp or passive volume control, is adding colourations/distortions to their sound.
It's called the "Ravel's Bolero Test" and you need a CD or LP of it or like it to conduct the test.
http://www.high-endaudio.com/RC-Linestages.html click on Bolero Test, scroll down to "CD Player?" if you have a cd player

It is basically doing what I suggest you do 2 posts back

Cheers George