Re: No Interconnect is the Best, attenuation and source switch options.



Eeyore wrote:

West wrote:

I just checked a DACT dealer (http://diycable.com) and they want $180 for a
CT2, stereo step attenuator. What do you think of that cost effectiveness?

A COMPLETE waste of money.

Graham

I built a preamp with a CT2 about 9 years ago for a guy who supplied me
with it plus a DACT
source selector switch to instal into the preamp.
This preamp, the Nemo was sold to another guy for $2,000 in about 2002,
and has been in daily use since then.

The DACT parts have never let the man down and only ever provided
accurate attenuation and reliable source switching.

It seems the more you use the switches, the more the metal becomes
polished and
oxide free so contact is assured.
You'd understand if you looked real close at one of the Dact range.

Looking closely at the DACT attenuator I used the resistors are all tiny
little fragile looking
surface mounts on a PCB board. Cost in the Thailand plant tp make the
bloody parts is probably
less than $5 total for everything.
If the pcb cracks, your'e stuffed, and need to buy a new one.

So buying a 24 position rotary switch and soldering in a chosen set of
1/4 watt metal film
quality resistors is better practice.
But a dual 24 position switch of quality manufacture isn't cheap eh....

Bu comparison an Alps Black 27mm square dual pot 100k, costs about $80
here now
and also is expensive compared to a cheapo generic Taiwan made pot
bought
now from general electronics stores for about $5.

While I have had very little trouble and have had good sound from the
cheap generics
while they remain in good working condition the Alps and DACT are
definately better
for me to instal in gear I handcraft simply because its better quality.

Just after I began manufacture of custom amps one customer did return an
integrated amp with a cheapo asian made pot after 2 years
because of noise, and I have had a couple of duds which gave
intermittent connections to tracks and wipers because the
some fucking asian makers still don't know how to make a reliable
pressure contact between
a solder lug and a track.
So I learnt only to instal at least Alps which have never failed.

The asian cheapos can be improved by giving all clamp connections on the
pot a good
squeeze with long nose pliers in a vice, and taping over the fucking
open hole these
dumb arsses leave to allow dirt and worse to enter; eg, soldering flux
droplets which
smear all over tracks when soldering up in a point to point circuit.
Its common to get noise in a cheap pot that is un-taped up and
unqueezed.
Contacts are sometimes quite loose after manufacture and when purchased,
and sure will be after
being heated first time during soldering.

I'd always prefer to place decent pots, switches and the best of
everything in all I make,
but customers hate paying for the best won't pay me more than
1/2 the price ARC or CJ etc try to charge, yet its a one off I am making
and i should get FOUR TIMES THE PRICES OFFERED for the gear made.
So I don't put silver wire and 50% nikel/50% GOSS cores in the OPT
and don't use the most expensive R&C and other parts that can be had
unless
someome insists upon it. So Aurie polypropylene caps don't come
standard,
let alone other caps far more expensive and entirely pretentious even in
my
cynical opinion.

Once you get the parts in a am amp set over the reliablility hurdle,
and the matching hurdle where needed, there is little better music to be
heard.

Cost effectiveness like class A efficiency percentages of triode SE amps
are not
sonically obvious except that both lead to very good sound
providing the circuit design topology and use is optimized and sensible.

Patrick Turner.
.