Or you hear the sonic effects of the volume pot on the passive, the impedance of which varies as you turn the volume up. I.e. a variation on what Sean suggested.
What's My Problem?
OK, here's the situation . . . . hoping some of you with more knowledge and experience than I have can help me out.
On 2-channel listening, my system sounds great at low levels -- say at 9 o'clock or less on my VPC-1 passive preamp volume. Lots of openness and air, good imaging, lots of space around instruments. Of course, dynamics and bass suffer, but that's to be expected.
Between 9 and 12, the sound starts to get harsher and the soundstage begins to close up -- orchestral stuff sounds much more confused and congested. Above 12 o'clock, it's really not worth listening to.
These aren't very high levels -- 9 o'clock is my "late night with the wife sleeping down the hall" listening level, and 12 o'clock doesn't get Verdi's "Requiem" to real-life SPLs.
My first assumption is that my amplifier just doesn't have enough juice. But the RB981 puts about 200 wpc into a 4 ohm load, and I would think that would be enough to get to at least decent levels, even with my admittedly power-hungry NHT 2.3As . . . .
Alternately, I thought that maybe the 9000ES/RB981 combo wasn't ideally suited for a passive preamp. I understand that component matching is critical here, but I'm not really clear on how it works . . . . the volume gets loud enough with no problem, it's just that the quality suffers.
Then again, it could simply be "louder=more annoyance from digital harshness," and I need to replace the 9000ES with a better Redbook CDP. But it seems to me that if the CDP was to blame, the soundstage and "airy-ness" wouldn't change much as the volume increased.
Suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
Pat
On 2-channel listening, my system sounds great at low levels -- say at 9 o'clock or less on my VPC-1 passive preamp volume. Lots of openness and air, good imaging, lots of space around instruments. Of course, dynamics and bass suffer, but that's to be expected.
Between 9 and 12, the sound starts to get harsher and the soundstage begins to close up -- orchestral stuff sounds much more confused and congested. Above 12 o'clock, it's really not worth listening to.
These aren't very high levels -- 9 o'clock is my "late night with the wife sleeping down the hall" listening level, and 12 o'clock doesn't get Verdi's "Requiem" to real-life SPLs.
My first assumption is that my amplifier just doesn't have enough juice. But the RB981 puts about 200 wpc into a 4 ohm load, and I would think that would be enough to get to at least decent levels, even with my admittedly power-hungry NHT 2.3As . . . .
Alternately, I thought that maybe the 9000ES/RB981 combo wasn't ideally suited for a passive preamp. I understand that component matching is critical here, but I'm not really clear on how it works . . . . the volume gets loud enough with no problem, it's just that the quality suffers.
Then again, it could simply be "louder=more annoyance from digital harshness," and I need to replace the 9000ES with a better Redbook CDP. But it seems to me that if the CDP was to blame, the soundstage and "airy-ness" wouldn't change much as the volume increased.
Suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
Pat