Hi Boky
Thanks for the tip, I did not open it because I trusted that I would send Arek
I have the same Kozhmo, when I tell to Arek told me it was a problem in covering silver which had resolved, not think I can repair it if the contacts are damaged.
Lost by lost I have to open, a shame about Arek
Regards
Thanks for the tip, I did not open it because I trusted that I would send Arek
I have the same Kozhmo, when I tell to Arek told me it was a problem in covering silver which had resolved, not think I can repair it if the contacts are damaged.
Lost by lost I have to open, a shame about Arek
Regards
Hi people, Anymore comments on Khozmos?
On paper it is really a gem but I'm concerned of its performance on the long run. Elma and Seiden are proven products but their 24 step attenuators seem a restricting. Seiden has 34 and 46 step options but they are out of my budget. So I'm a bit confused. Any help would be appreciated.
Regards,
On paper it is really a gem but I'm concerned of its performance on the long run. Elma and Seiden are proven products but their 24 step attenuators seem a restricting. Seiden has 34 and 46 step options but they are out of my budget. So I'm a bit confused. Any help would be appreciated.
Regards,
I have used Arek's pot a couple of times now. With friends we designed a preamplifier which uses a pcb layout designed around the Khozmo pot.
In total we bought 26 pots. Two have shown flaws that are no problem to correct simply by adjusting the wiping contacts accessible once you have removed the small pcb with the shunt resistors.
All wipers are fixed with little metric size 1 Allen-screws.
There have been reports about failing Khozmo pots that either started making clicking noises when switched or even went 100% open (these are the two cases I mentioned earlier). The latter is the worst case scenario especially when you have an active preamplifier design with some notable gain capability and some very powerfull monos connected to the preamp...lucky my diamond tweeters are still alive...
If you have problems with clicking, you may want to consider disasembling the pot, clean the contacts and preserve them with Deoxit products. Reassemble the pot by assuring that there is just enough pressure on the wiper not to lose contact but not so much that it groves it's way into the contact tracks.
MBB is achieved by bridging two adjacent contacts by one single wiper contact. With enough pressure it will provide the MBB function.
The mechanical assembly is quite rigid and the axle held in place by a front and a rear ball bearing. On one pot I found that just enough pressure on the axle by pushing from the front was enough to unseat one contact giving 100% of the signal a pass. Here again a quick readjustment of the wiper by increasing the pressure is resolving the issue.
I habe tried these pots with Dale resistors and Mills shunts as well as Z-foil shunts and finally Takman carbon type resistors (still waiting for the metal film version to show up). I have never had any pot to come anywhere close to these pots in regards to sonic performance. Which type of resistors you use is very much a matter of taste but compared to other products on the market they did excel!
Arek is improving his production with all feedback given and I have never had any problems communicating with him. He is a polite and easy fellow to deal with and he offered to replace the defective pots.
I don't see to do any product bashing even when some difficulties arise. Sonically this product is great. Mechanically it may need a caring hand once in a while but thinking of a Harley or a Ferrari...top performance need some maintenance every once in a while.
...and NO! I am not affiliated with Arek! I just meant to give some useful feedback to a great sounding product now that I have had so many of them going through my hands and over my workbench...
In total we bought 26 pots. Two have shown flaws that are no problem to correct simply by adjusting the wiping contacts accessible once you have removed the small pcb with the shunt resistors.
All wipers are fixed with little metric size 1 Allen-screws.
There have been reports about failing Khozmo pots that either started making clicking noises when switched or even went 100% open (these are the two cases I mentioned earlier). The latter is the worst case scenario especially when you have an active preamplifier design with some notable gain capability and some very powerfull monos connected to the preamp...lucky my diamond tweeters are still alive...
If you have problems with clicking, you may want to consider disasembling the pot, clean the contacts and preserve them with Deoxit products. Reassemble the pot by assuring that there is just enough pressure on the wiper not to lose contact but not so much that it groves it's way into the contact tracks.
MBB is achieved by bridging two adjacent contacts by one single wiper contact. With enough pressure it will provide the MBB function.
The mechanical assembly is quite rigid and the axle held in place by a front and a rear ball bearing. On one pot I found that just enough pressure on the axle by pushing from the front was enough to unseat one contact giving 100% of the signal a pass. Here again a quick readjustment of the wiper by increasing the pressure is resolving the issue.
I habe tried these pots with Dale resistors and Mills shunts as well as Z-foil shunts and finally Takman carbon type resistors (still waiting for the metal film version to show up). I have never had any pot to come anywhere close to these pots in regards to sonic performance. Which type of resistors you use is very much a matter of taste but compared to other products on the market they did excel!
Arek is improving his production with all feedback given and I have never had any problems communicating with him. He is a polite and easy fellow to deal with and he offered to replace the defective pots.
I don't see to do any product bashing even when some difficulties arise. Sonically this product is great. Mechanically it may need a caring hand once in a while but thinking of a Harley or a Ferrari...top performance need some maintenance every once in a while.
...and NO! I am not affiliated with Arek! I just meant to give some useful feedback to a great sounding product now that I have had so many of them going through my hands and over my workbench...
Hi Sunsun,
I have now tried the Takman pot and the Vishay pot in a JetFet based circuit. I use 50k shunt quad pots in a balanced circuit where the pot sits between the inputs and the gain circuit.
To make it perfectly clear, my experience and what I am about to comment is a magnification of very fine and subtle differences!!!
- Vishay resistor equipped pot: more punsh in the lowes bass, more openness, more top end extension
- Takman carbon equipped pot: more colour, silkier
In another step I took the Passlabs XP20 of a friend and bypassed the volume chips used by Wayne in order to try out the preamp with the Kozhmo 50k quad pot. It is very impressive how good the XP20 sounds with the chips...because when you get to hear the twin chassis preamp with the stepped attenuator you wonder how anyone would waste all this potential...with the Kozhmo, the XP20 turned out to be absolutely fantastic!!! The chips are a hell of a bottleneck! I wonder if anything like this would happen in a XP30 where of course the seperate cabinets and hence split volume control would make it a bit hard in regards to user comfort...but would the Muse-chips lose so deerly compared to the stepped attenuator???
Technically speaken, the Vishay proves to be a more precise tool while the Takman is a more artistic or emotional tool.
At Madrigal they would fit the Vishay pot into a Mark Levinson component while the Takman would be very likely to be found in a Tron or Shindo.
I hope this was of help...
By the way...
I have now had the chance to perform a detailed test on the new Kozhmos. With the new contacts I had no sign of noise or any deteriorating issues. If there is any need or interest, I would be happy to post pictures (if not, I will do my very best not to stress the thread any more than nessecary
)
I have now tried the Takman pot and the Vishay pot in a JetFet based circuit. I use 50k shunt quad pots in a balanced circuit where the pot sits between the inputs and the gain circuit.
To make it perfectly clear, my experience and what I am about to comment is a magnification of very fine and subtle differences!!!
- Vishay resistor equipped pot: more punsh in the lowes bass, more openness, more top end extension
- Takman carbon equipped pot: more colour, silkier
In another step I took the Passlabs XP20 of a friend and bypassed the volume chips used by Wayne in order to try out the preamp with the Kozhmo 50k quad pot. It is very impressive how good the XP20 sounds with the chips...because when you get to hear the twin chassis preamp with the stepped attenuator you wonder how anyone would waste all this potential...with the Kozhmo, the XP20 turned out to be absolutely fantastic!!! The chips are a hell of a bottleneck! I wonder if anything like this would happen in a XP30 where of course the seperate cabinets and hence split volume control would make it a bit hard in regards to user comfort...but would the Muse-chips lose so deerly compared to the stepped attenuator???
Technically speaken, the Vishay proves to be a more precise tool while the Takman is a more artistic or emotional tool.
At Madrigal they would fit the Vishay pot into a Mark Levinson component while the Takman would be very likely to be found in a Tron or Shindo.
I hope this was of help...
By the way...
I have now had the chance to perform a detailed test on the new Kozhmos. With the new contacts I had no sign of noise or any deteriorating issues. If there is any need or interest, I would be happy to post pictures (if not, I will do my very best not to stress the thread any more than nessecary
)I bought 2 last year and it is by far the best resistor ladder volume available to audio. The difference with alps blue is day and night. (and with 3 other volume controls too: small resistors ladder, passive one resistor, carbon)
The only other switch that I have that might* sound better is a silver contact but has only 24 positions, sealed industrial thing with full silver, its so good that it is noisy it keeps any signal loop and requires special configuration, also it can break full on .
By the way I had no noise from the break or make mechanism. Small advice: you can use noise reduction resistors to give a temporary ground potential voltage to the input...
The only other switch that I have that might* sound better is a silver contact but has only 24 positions, sealed industrial thing with full silver
, its so good that it is noisy it keeps any signal loop and requires special configuration, also it can break full on . By the way I had no noise from the break or make mechanism. Small advice: you can use noise reduction resistors to give a temporary ground potential voltage to the input...
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Today on this khozmo the contacts got lose and I could not hear anything but noise.
I opened the switch which is easy and saw the metal deposit on the gold contacts left by the rotating white metal brush parts. I pushed on the shaft down to increase the contacts strength and cleaned with alcohol. I hope it works now and wont let me down
I opened the switch which is easy and saw the metal deposit on the gold contacts left by the rotating white metal brush parts. I pushed on the shaft down to increase the contacts strength and cleaned with alcohol. I hope it works now and wont let me down
Interesting thread. I'm trying to decide whether to buy one of these or just try a Tocos Cosmos for the timebeing, which I've heard sound rather good (for the reasonable outlay). Currently I use an Alps Blue which I gather isn't so good for much other than channel balance and feel. If anyone's heard a Tocos pot I'd love to know how wide they reckon the gulf would be (compared to a Khozmo stepped).
Simon
Simon
Khozmo
The Khozmo is sold.
Cheers!
Guys, I have a Khozmo stepped attenuator for sale if anyone is interested. It's a 48 step 50K stereo.
So let me know if you want it
Kind regards,
Sjoerd
The Khozmo is sold.
Cheers!
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