Haha, I think they added the 'dual-mono' line when I ordered mine. I was originally using them in a multi-amp system and I needed to match the gain betweeen the sub-amps and the rest of the system. But I needed one attenuator on each side, so they made a pair for me (see attached).

The more interesting line for me is "It can be supplied with top quality WBT RCA sockets for unbalanced use or with Neutrik XLR plugs, sockets and additional attenuators for fully balanced operation."

So where are my additional attenuators for fully balanced operation? Surely there should be two rows of resisters per channel, one for each phase, no?

Mani.

For a discussion I'm having with Gerd right now I thought I'd open the ProPassion passive attenuators up to see what's inside. I bought these over ten years ago and paid ~£700 back then for a fully balanced setup. But from the picture (only one channel shown) it looks like I was short-changed - they don't look 'fully balanced' to me - but anyone, please correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe this explains why I prefer the sound of XX's internal digital volume control?

Mani.

Paul, I'm happy to bring the Sauermann monos and/or my 'super gainclone' monos over to your place if you're interested. Let's discuss over PM.

Meanwhile...

I mustered enough motivation to get the soldering iron out yesterday with the intention of changing the trannies in the gainclone power supplies to reduce the humming I'm currently getting. And then I remembered that I have a 'PurePower 2000' AC regenerator sitting gathering dust in my basement. This has a built in adjustment to reduce humming in trannies. So I thought I'd give this a go before powering up the soldering iron. And lo and behold, I found by using this adjustment I could reduce the humming to a level that was simply not audible a few centimeters away from the trannies (and in the dead of night too).

So, I replaced the Magtech in my home study/office system with the gainclones being fed off the PurePower and started listening. The sound was nice, but a bit bright and thin. Although the PurePower was being fed off the same circuit as the rest of the system, I thought I'd try powering the NOS1 off the PurePower too. There wasn't an improvement in sound though. I then thought I'd disconnect the PurePower totally from the wall socket and power the gainclones and NOS1 from the PurePower's internal battery. The brightness in the sound vanished immediately, replaced by a gorgeous 'organic' sound. But the PurePower had been sitting idle and unplugged for over a year and the battery was dissipating quickly.

Having replugged the PurePower into the wall socket, the brightness/thinness returned. So I thought hell, I'll try the PC off the PurePower too (with an isolation transformer between the PurePower and PC). And...

... WOW! I hit jackpot. With the PC, NOS1 and gainclones all powered off the PurePower, I'm finally getting a sound that is pretty much identical to that from the PurePower's battery. And I love it. I know this because I sat in my study/office just listening to music into the early hours of the morning - the first time in a year or so I've done this.

I'm getting a balance of microscopic detail and total smoothness that is just beautiful.

So in a nutshell, maybe I should in some way be thankful that my gainclones had buzzing trannies (here at least - they didn't buzz at Bert's place). I would never have tried the PurePower otherwise - I had decided that I would never use it for music duties but as a UPS for my work PC because I thought it just made the sound too bright when powered off the mains (I always loved its sound off battery). BUT, I never used it to power the whole system before, including the PC. I don't know, but maybe this inadvertently creates ground loops or something.

I'll post more thoughts of the gainclones once I've listened to and compared things in more depth. But for now I have to say that they're sounding very, very nice being fed directly from the NOS1 and powering my 'small' Quad 2805 speakers.

Mani.

A recent post by Paul in the "PC electrical isolation from DAC" thread reminded me that I really should get the 'super gainclones' that Bert built for me up and running again. I need to replace their transformers with a new pair that Bert sent me, as the current ones tend to hum too loudly (nothing else in my system hums at all). Humming aside, they sounded amazing with my Quads when they were connected. I'll report back once the new trannies are installed (probably next week once I have a bit of downtime from travelling).

Once everything is up and running, I'll also do a comparison between the super-gainclone monos and the Sauermann monos - should be interesting...

Mani.

Ha, I should really check things before writing a post (I blame still being a bit jet-lagged). I thought my USB3 cable was 10m, but it's actually only 5m - I got confused with a (blue) 10m CAT6 cable I ordered at the same time.

To make amends, I've just ordered a couple of simple USB adaptors (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Female-USB-Adaptor---A-USB-4/dp/B0012XXX2Q/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1341392219&sr=8-10) and will link the following three standard blue copper USB3 cables that I already have here together: 5m, 3m and 1.8m... and see what happens.

Sorry for any confusion.

Mani.

EDIT: Ordered a couple of these instead http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007HXM11E/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00

Paul, Nick, thanks for sharing. But just in case it's of use to anyone, I've compared a standard blue 10m copper USB3 cable to a standard blue 1m copper USB3 cable and I can't hear any difference between the two. The 10m cable allows me to place Le Monster in the cellar well away from my listening room. No electrical isolation here, but the PC and rest of system run off the same mains circuit anyway (with a 1KV isolation trannie for the PC) to avoid ground loops.


It sounds like Paul's system has come on somewhat since I listened to it, what a year or so ago? It was already pretty spectacular back then. So I may just have to invite myself across in the next few weeks... and put a few more miles on the NSX

Mani.

Hi Guys, greetings from Rio (I'm in Brazil for a few days business)! Far be it for me to preach to anyone, but as soon as Peter mentioned his Noble-winning feature, I pretty much stopped tweaking all together, with a view that it was pointless. But I have a few weeks off in July and hope to be able to join the fun then.

Thanks to everyone who's shared their experiences to date - there will be so much to play around with... can't wait...

Mani.

Hmmm...

Well, I suspect my suggestion will sound naive and is probably not practical, but why not consider 'XX 2.0' a totally new product? Everyone pays a new full license for it. If people don't want or can't afford to do this, that's fine - they just stick with 0.9z-6 (which you can continue to support for bug fixes).

I'd go further and start charging for major upgrades too - e.g. if/when DSD playback is introduced...

This isn't really about money, it's more about 'value'. Anyone who's taken the time to truly explore XX's current capability knows it's head and shoulders above anything else right now. God only knows (well, Peter too!) how far the new version will take the SOTA of computer playback. This has a value to music lovers far in excess of the €100-€200 (or whatever) the new license might cost.

And I for one feel almost embarrassed that I've not had to pay a penny for any upgrades these last few years.

Mani.

Hey Peter, I hope I speak for the majority of XX users...

I would be more than happy to pay a new license fee for 0.9z-7. It just seems to me that this is not an 'update' but a major 'new release'. Even if you don't want to force all existing users to pay for a new license, I personally would be happy to do so voluntarily as a gesture of how much I appreciate all the work you've put into this. Unless you're in any way offended by my suggestion, I will make a payment into the Phasure PayPal account.

Mani.

Should've given him Marmite...

Mani.

Hey Peter, if we use a laptop, does this have to remain switched 'on' as we play music? I mean, if the laptop goes into sleep mode, would the remote connection automatically resume on bringing the laptop back to life? Even it this works OK, I assume keeping the laptop on is useful for hot keys, etc.

The issue I have is that I hate the fan noise from laptops (and desktops). Yes, you could say that you won't hear it when music is playing, which may well be true, but it still bothers me all the same. No, a tablet that works well for XX remote duties is what I want - totally quiet, easy to operate (just for remote duties) and a long battery life. Perfect!

I'm happy to be a guinea pig to test how well the iPad3 solution works. Those who are not sure how to proceed might want to just hold off ordering an iPad2/3 until those of us with one have a chance to test it out. Meanwhile, as Peter says just use a laptop or something.

Mani.

Juan, one of the things I really like about my iPhone is the FaceTime feature (video phone). I travel a lot for work and it's just great connecting to a hotel's wifi and being able to spend as long as I want talking to my family back home... absolutely free. I know that Skype do a similar thing, but it's really easy on the iPhone if the recipent also has an iPhone.

It occcured to me as I placed the order for my iPad3 that FaceTime would be great on it. But I'm not actually sure it works unless you have the 3G/4G version - I mean, how would it have a phone number without a sim card?

If you want to explore video phoning then a 3G/4G might be a better option. But I really don't know about any of this so a more experienced Apple user might be able to confirm this.

Mani.

Haha, too late for me. I already ordered the iPad3...

I would have happily settled for a cheap Android tablet, but wanted one with ICS and of course bluetooth. After a bit of time researching, it became obvious that such a device isn't that easy to find. So I opted for the iPad3.

Mani.

Although I use an iPhone (mainly because there are docks for it everywhere) and although my wife has a 1st gen iPad which is OK for occasional web browsing, I have to say that I really, really don't like Apple as a company and would avoid their products if I could. About 10 years ago I had an Apple Titanium laptop and quite liked it - it looked gorgeous, worked well with MS Office for OSX and had a long battery life. But nowadays I just hate the way Apple treats people, as if we're all morons. I mean, you have to give your credit card details to Apple before you can get the iPhone to work! I can't remember if the same is true with the iPad (maybe not if you already have an Apple account).

Having said this though, I probably will order an Apple iPad 2 for XX remote control duties after all, as it seems the safest bet. Ordinarily, I'd go for the Asus EeePad, but think the 10.1" widescreen is unnecessary. Also I've read a few alarming user reviews on Amazon (cracked screens, etc).

So unless anyone can come up with another recommendation, I'll place my order for the iPad 2 later today (310 UK pounds from Amazon).

Mani.

WOW! Hey, I understand this from a 'computer audio' perspective, but from a general 'digital audio' perspective this is quite a statement.

With your Nobel-winning tweak you seem to suggest that the problem with digital audio sits purely on the replay side and not on the recording side. I can't undersand why the ADC process would be any easier than the DAC process, unless the filtering required during ADC (at 16/44.1 at least) is trivial compared to the filtering required during DAC.

In any event it kind of reminds me of something that Tim de Paravicini said about tape. Something along the lines of: it's easy to record onto tape but very difficult to extract the maximum information off tape on replay.

Mani.