Stoked about new volume control for my Simple SE

[BillEpstein]

I ordered a $25.00, 50K series attenuator from E-Bay seller Vintage Audio Lab even tho' I was scared to death of soldering wires to SMDs.

Just finished up a half hour ago and my Simple SE is singing (or at least Joni is) like never before.


Set my Hakko on 700 degrees, used 26ga. wire wrapped once around each SMD-bearing terminal and got off and on quickly. No worries.

Ms. Mitchells voice is a beleivable size, the soundstage is airy, wide and deep but most of all, the emotion on the album Blue really comes through.

[oldmanStrat]

Wow, boat load of taps on that thing - is it a different resistance for each tap?

[BillEpstein]

They're all series resistors. You're used to seeing one this way:



The Vintage Audio lab has surface mount resistors like the DACT.

Tracks and sounds better than resistive pots; even the PEC or TKD.

[oldmanStrat]

wow, ok got it.

shouldn't there be a standard place to solder to instead of tacking wires onto resistor bodies?

[BillEpstein]

The pic I stole from the Goldpoint site , sorry Arnie, shows the real deal, an Elma (Elna?) purpose built switch and it has L&R In, Out and Gr.

The Taiwan version uses a generic 23 position switch with a make-do hook-up to maximise the steps. BTW, the attenuation is quite steep all the way past 2 O'clock and has little gain until that point with the Simple SE. I wish the steps were larger from 10 O'clock to 2 but it sounds so good, hate to quibble.

Arnie Roatcap's Goldpoint sounds marginally better (I had one for quite a few years, first in a Foreplay II and then an Ella) and is built much better, but this thing is 25 bucks and sounds great.

[oldmanStrat]

well it's linear and not logarithmic so you would expect you would have to crank it up...

interesting part.

[nic6paul]

I actually bought one of these....didnt realize it was linear until now.

[whitelabrat]

Broskie's attenuator is a worthy contender too. It's much easier to stuff.

[oldmanStrat]

Originally posted by nic6paul
I actually bought one of these....didnt realize it was linear until now.

I actually don't know that for sure - I made the assumption based on Bill's description of having to crank it up, and that most likely all of the resistors are the same value.

It just dawned on me that you might be able to get a logarithmic result mechanically ...

I've never taken apart a pot, may have to give that a try

[Giaime]

I have one of those mounted in my headphone amplifier, and no, I think it's log, it has different resistor values (it's easy to distinguish a linear pot, the volume jumps up at the first or second step).

http://giaime.altervista.org/CK2III.html

It isn't the most mechanically robust attenuator I've ever tried (the original DACT is much better) but for light use the quality/price ratio is good.