Lightspeed Attenuator - Best Preamp Ever?

hopkinstk

I’d been searching for a preamp, so for a giggle I Googled “best preamp ever audiogon” to see to see who had recommended what.

The top hit was for tube preamps, but I didn’t want to limit my search to tubes. The second-top hit was not it either – just preamps for sale.

But the third and fourth hits were more like it. They came from this very thread. I started reading. My reading extended over two nights. (Thanks guys!) My interest turned to intrigue when I twigged that the preamp – the Lightspeed Attenuator of course – was Australian (which is what I am and where I am).

What really kept me reading was seeing actual users were replacing expensive and much-loved amps – tubes even – with something straightforward and cheap (by comparison).

Now, the OP here (thank you Pubul57) had made it clear that the Lightspeed needs the right environment in which to work.  A source ouputting 2V or more, which is pretty much everything these days I believe, a short interconnect to the power amp (three metres or less), low capacitance interconnects – and a power amp whose input is preferably the industry standard of 47K ohms or more.

I checked the specs on my Halcro DM38. Only 10K ohms on the RCA input. The Lightspeed outputs RCA only. That might be a problem. But I wasn’t going to stop now, was I?

Just to test before shelling out, I plugged my passive Schiit Sys into the Halcro. The Schiit outputs up to 5K ohm (not dissimilar I believe to the most the Lightspeed puts out). So we are a long way from the ideal 1:10 ratio, which would have us up around the 47K standard. But the Schiit provided enough bass and volume to make me push ahead. It worked, at least. But I thought I was probably going to need a buffer, so as to fix the impedance mismatch between the Lightspeed and the Halcro.

And I should detail the rest of the system. Speakers are a massive pair – Be-One, The One. Five drivers per cabinet, about 100 kgs each, sensitivity 89db. Streaming via an Auralic Aries Mini, listening to 320 MPs, CD rips, hi-res files and DSD. Switching between DACs – the Aries, an Emotiva and an R2R Audio-GD 11. Preamps on hand for comparison were the Aries Mini again, a Xindak XB 8250, and a Geiseler preamp (another boutique Australian product) (and the pre-outs of a few integrated, including a Jungson JA-88D, Yamaha AS200, Harmon Kardon 990). There were two tube preamps around, an Audile using Jan Philips 5814a tubes, and a SoundMaster Mk 23 using 2A3, but the tubes were so different, I didn’t make comparisons with the Lightspeed. The room is roughly 30 foot long and 12 foot wide.

So the Lightspeed arrived. One great thing about it – no burn-in. Because there is nothing to burn it. That’s a relief. Just give it one minute to get warm. We’re off.

First impressions: this is good.

It was clear. Like water. There was no shortage of bass. Or volume. Highs were clear. Volume – more than enough. I had it playing around 2 o’clock to play it loud (90db, sitting four to five metres from the speakers.) There is no sweet spot on the volume dial – the sound is the same all the way. There was no channel imbalance.

That’s what it sounded like – which is to say, it had little sound of its own.

It was dead silent – which I suppose is a function of no gain and no mechanical parts to speak of. My room is very quiet, so that silence is impressive – and necessary.

Whenever I get a new component, I make a point of listening to it. By which I mean, not comparing, but listening. (And I only change one thing at a time – so I can be sure where the difference is coming from.)

So only after a few days did I start to compare – with a little bit of fear.

Comparison confirmed my suspicions: what the Lightspeed delivered was good, but insufficient. It was approaching the weaknesses commonly attributed to passive preamps. The attack on notes – be they guitar strings or piano notes or kick drums or electronic bass bombs – wasn’t quite there. That one thing amounted to the music losing life and shine.

But what was there was all good – it just felt the thing was struggling, pushing the music uphill. But it was clearly good enough that I had to know how it would sound given the right conditions. So let’s get a buffer.

I got a Musical Fidelity X10v3 (not XD.) It puts out just 33 ohms. It deploys two military-spec tubes – which Musical Fidelity says are designed to withstand the radiation of a nuclear war. Pity the rest of the system won’t survive.

And, voila. Now we’re talking.

If the taste was water before, it was water out of a plastic cup. Now it’s water out of quality glass. Transparent.

All the life and dynamics were there. Transients had zing. Slam had slam. If the recording has depth and height and placement (ie soundstage), so does its reproduction.

It just sounded like I was hearing the music – be it Billie Holiday, Kraftwerk, Crazy Horse or Chopin. The lack of distortion from both components is quite the treat.

So, there you go. This will be old news to some of you – but I had to share it, and the odd fact that I had to go so far afield to discover something in my own backyard.