Buffer amp no gain

You are looking for a unity gain (i.e., voltage in = voltage out) buffer.

There are some tube buffers available such as one made by Tortuga and the two linked already in this thread but, as you pointed out, you do not need or want the volume control. I suspect it would be easy to construct the Pass B1 buffer without a volume control. It appears they still sell the board through the store. I suspect you would replace the VC with the correct value resistor, assuming you will operate it from the output of your current VC. I am not the one to help with that but I suspect it would be easy to do. This article may also be of some help.

@cat_doorman

Hattor has a nice looking tube buffer meant to be used with their passive preamps. It might have some fixed gain though. I’m not sure if that can be defeated, bypassed or altered as an option.

I own one of those and they sound very nice. The default is 9dB gain, which really isn’t that much but Arek can build them to your specification. We compromised and mine has 6dB gain.

I spent some time trying to find a preamp with little to no gain, even started a thread on it here, but eventually broadened my search. While I didn’t need any gain, getting a little hasn’t seemed to hurt anything.

If you want a great sounding preamp with no gain, the SMc Audio VRE-1 C comes with 6dB gain through the transformers. However, I believe Steve can build it with unity gain as he did with my modified TLC-1, which I use as a unity gain buffer along with the Hattor passive, which provides volume control and other convenient functionality.

Yeah, I actually had to read that twice in the original post before I caught on.  When he said "phone inputs" he was talking about what many would call an rca connector or an rca chassis mount socket.

Bumpy had "phono" in his original post. The use of "phone" in my post was either an auto correction or more likely the result of a brain to finger malfunction.

@larryi - Thank you for the link to information about transformers. I have tried transformer volume controls and was not a fan, although I could see the appeal as they have a smooth sound.

Transformers are also used by some preamp/amplifier manufacturers on the input/output sides of things as they can offer benefits related to impedance matching and galvanic isolation, can be used to convert balanced signals, and can add about +6dB gain. The SMc mods to my TLC-1 preamp (now buffer) included Lundahl transformers on the output side, the same as used in their VRE-1 preamp. In addition to their already well-regarded line of transformers, Lundahl offers two higher level (or at least more expensive) transformers - one wound using Cardas copper wire and one wound with silver wire. My TLC-1 has the Cardas wire version as the silver was quite expensive. I never thought about the contribution of those transformers to the sound of the preamp so your linked article was quite interesting to me.

@ieales - Typically, the only people touting a MIRACLE CURE are the people selling a MIRACLE CURE, - unless of course you are talking about a properly oriented colored fuse.

@larryi  - The value of a buffer is for impedance matching as you noticed when comparing the passive Placette volume control to the unity gain Placette linestage, which is basically their volume control with a buffer.  I would not suggest a buffer as a tone control, although the improvement in impedance matching (compared to a passive) is typically heard as improved dynamics and tonal quality.  I believe with the Placette units, there are only two Vishay S-102 resistors active at one time so the only thing affected by their 125 volume steps is a that the user has a greater choice in controlling the volume, it would have no sonic affect whatsoever.