Volume controls

BTW the £2 Omeg pot used in NVA is a cracker afaic, so the price of an SA seems unjustified to me.

Let's assume they use 1% or better resistors in the SA. Many common pots cant manage 5% channel matching, some are even worse at lowest setting. So a SA pretty much guarantees channel matching better than you can hear, that's my primary reason for liking them.

You could then get into arguments for linearity and audibility of different resistor films and foils. But you're chasing vastly diminishing returns at this point.

Some people like fixed steps too.

I've just gone back to a vol pot from a 64 step remote control khozmo. Luckily the vol pot is superbly matched and the taper is friendly enough to the listening levels I use.

Theres good and bad examples of both types.

I lean towards there being quality differences in the sound of some pots, though I felt no loss in going g with my current ko-on tkd pot.

Is TVC a rude word here? Mine seems to have maybe a hundred volume steps.

I'm a huge fan of the Stepped attenuator and afaic, pots leave a lot to be desired. I've not tried the tkd one but anything else I have tried, has moved me a step back from the level of transparency a good SA offers.

TVC and AVC have been varying In performance. Personally, the ringing often found in either forms of the device puts me off but the Nick Gorham one is a cracker.

I bought the relay based Khozmo 64 step off Simon, actually by mistake as I didn't read an advert for it, just knew he had a remote control Khozmo for sale. Wrong type. Doh,

But, I am severely impressed by it. I had an alps blue in and the difference between the two isn't subtle. I know there's a large price difference but I've said it a million times, the volume pot is a huge bottleneck.

I recently saw the innards of a EAR preamp. It was fitted with a £9 Alps Blue. The preamp cost £10k.

Apparently Tim DP doesn't place much value on the components in his gear. His only concern is if its the correct value.

256 steps would at least solve the problem of not having freedom of choice over volume levels. Things like 24 steps are just too limited for me.

A trick I've used with one of my Alps Blue passives is to wire it as a variable resistor rather than a potentiometer and use it with a fixed resistor as the upper arm of a pot with the Alps as the lower arm. This makes for a good improvement in SQ but at the expense of limited control range... you can't turn it up beyond say 2/3rd's of max volume as even with the Alps fully turned up there is still the fixed resistor in the chain. This no issue if you have plenty of gain from your power amp of course. My modded Leak Stereo 20 is really sensitive so even with the reduced vol control range I can't turn it up beyond about 9 o clock anyway!

What?!

The 50p carbon track pot in the Little Bear passive pre-amp (volume control) does a good job. No nasties there.