Placette Passive Owners...

In an experiment to prove its transparency, Placette actually recommends you placing the unit between your preamp and amps to see if you hear a difference in sound. Then you take out your preamp and then insert it back in between the Placette and amps to see if you now hear a difference. I don't know why you want to put another preamp in your signal chain but I probably would place it after your active preamp and have the Placette attenuate the volume.

Anyways, Like Mike said, as long as the cables connecting the Placette to the amps is short, then you won't have any problems. With a short interconnect from Placette to amps and a long interconnect from source to Placette, your system should sound as it should. But have it the other way around and use a short interconnect from source to Placette and a long interconnect from the Placette to the amps, and you'll suffer the loss of dynamics that is associated with passive preamps.

So judging from the results of my cable experiments described above, it was simply logical and really a requirement for me to place them close to the amps. Lengths from source to the Placette doesn't really matter so much and really minimizes inconveniences as you don't have to worry about keeping your sources close to the Placette.

I'm confident that placing the Placette in between the your active preamp and amps wouldn't do much to the sound, ie. the Placette will be transparent. What I am wondering is whether placing the Placette in between the source and active pre would improve the sound compared to the sound you get without the Placette. I am interested in hearing the results from your own experiments.

Mike,

If the Placette is placed between source and the active preamp, wouldn't the active preamp be responsible for volume control in this scenario? I understand that having the Placette placed after the active preamp can make the active preamp function as a sort of switchbox.

I really am interested in knowing why you're thinking of this configuration TomRyan.

Sdatch, what poweramp was this? In this other system that did not work well, did the system go from a previously single ended connection to balanced connection or vice versa?

Sdatch, were the cables between the amps and the Placette short? I'm no expert on impedances and input sensitivity etc, but I do believe in system matching and synergy. Guy told me that "the most important thing to look for in the amp (other than how it sounds) is simply can it be driven to full output with less than 1.5 volts or so at the input". I'm not sure how the Classe or the source fits in but I don't believe it is outside of what is considered the normal range although if I'm not mistaken, it might have slightly too little input sensitivity and requiring more volts to achieve full output.

In my system, where I have abalanced linestage, I am using a single ended source, so I'm only getting half the signal. On some recordings, one might want more gain. In addition, I previously had Bryston amps, which had an gain selector. Flipping the switch to the correct gain for single ended source was essential for enough gain to be had. I thought the problem might be something like what I experienced but it's obviously not the case.