Thoughts on Placette Preamps?

I'm not sure how sensitive VK75 is but its input impedance is great to use it with passive preamp like Placette. On your digital end make sure that it can throw some sufficient voltage ~3V with preferably no DC component. Having these conditions met, you can benefit a lot from passive preamp in comparison to active one.

I am in a similar situation, I have a VK-60 powering Avalon’s, and seriously considered the Placette passive pre. Though I decided that the 80% more was not justifiable just to use balanced cables, I have heard only good about these unit and with the home trial there is nothing to loose, besides shipping of course(but that is cheap insurance). I am unfamiliar with your CD player(no personal experience with it) but most true enthusiasts agree that a system sounds better going through a pre(of some sort, not sure if passive fits in this league or not...) no particular reason, it just does, one of those unchallenged audio rules. I was not sure between the BAT amp and the power hungry Avalon’s if the passive pre was the best set up, I have a feeling that the volume will need to be cranked a good deal of the time, which is not flattering to the rest of the system. But hay it is a free in home trial, it may be worth a little time to get a component that will work very well. Good luck and let us know how you make out. ~Tim

i own the Placette Remote Volume Control pre with 1 output.It is very dynamic sounding with a wide soundstage..I 've used it with just a cd player and used it as a remote with my Audible Ilusion pre-amp..very nice piece

I am using a Placette balanced volume control between my Theta Gen Va and my Music Reference RM-200. It blew away my CJ Premier 14 and a Audio Researce LS-15.

I realy forgot about BAT -- they have either balanced or SE outputs in their regular configuration. Placette has also balanced out versions and I would recommend to stay with one output device either balanced or SE.

In order to take the most advantage of having passive preamp please MEASURE before you build!

Find out an output level of your CD-player with manufacturer or user manuals and sencitivity, input impedance of your amplifier. You have to have +-1V above the input sencitivity of your amplifier for uncompromised dynamics.

For example if your input sencitivity is 1V and the output of your CD-player is 1.5V then you'll most-lilely need extra 7dB of voltage gain and have to avoid using passive preamp.

There is a decibel conversion table you can check at http://www.testeq.com/charts/decibels.lasso