Best Sounding Passive Preamp

Deradave, try buying or building an LSA DIY - no pot better than no pot. Not the killer value of your DIY, but I think you will find even better performance if you can believe it.

I notice the consensus in the Agon chattering class is the TVC/AVC "kill" resitor based passives. Not my eperience, but I do wonder what a TVC/AVC would be the better approach, there obvioulsy some systems that would be better served by some impedance matching provided by them.

Bent Audio Tap-X

BENT was the best of all I tried, till I tried the LSA, but certainly at the pinnacle of passive options, and likely the best TVC (like the AVC even better), plus a lot more flexibility than the LSA which is a little hairshirt, but....

Pubul57,

Interesting. I purchased the LSA recently and have been A/B'ing it against the Tap-X. It is very close but in my opinion I find the Tap-X has slightly better drive in my system at least and produces a more open soundstage.

Are you running very short interconnects between the LSA and your source and between LSA and amp? Would be interested to hear your thoughts on how to get the best out of the LSA.

Thanks

James

Short ICs with low capacitance (Cardas GR). By the way, Clio9 has started an LSA Forum at his new website for electra-fidelity.com - A good gatheirng place for LSA fanatics to share ideas. I can very easily see someone using the BENT for life and being very, very happy, especially getting off the merry-go-round:). In fact, I might buy one again, I do miss remote and balance control - it certainly would be at the very top of my list for passives to consider, though I'm not sure if John is still selling them; that is not clear to me as it seem he wanted to sell to OEMs.