So it is just a potentiometer? Another interesting article by our friendly collaborator Tim.
Maybe the worst enemy of all time the humble volume control. In most cases a voltage divider presenting two resistances; one in series (oh la la…) and one parallel (making for the load seen by source).But the closer you get to a serious setup the more varieties are at hand, H-pads, T-pads impedance matching. So no more swings of the impedance, no more capacitance coupling with the cables….
I have been playing testing with pots for sometime now, the design be it shunt, ladder, series…stepped, carbon track, plastic track, fader P&G, Neumann…The best? No idea, but we all have an idea I guess. My wife reminds me that opinions are like AH’s, we all have one…
But I started to look at pro audio and recording solutions; do they know anything? Well for a starter they are in business not into flashy anything that does not add anything to the bottom line of the P&L. So cheap? Well I guess not as they are selling their services to musicians who know a bit about sound? Well maybe not all of them but some do! Step a back in bit in time and you get some astonishing recordings that are so natural and smooth…they command the question…what level control did they use? Most of the time some sort of stepped devise with hand wound wire resistances (resistance wire witrh cotton sleeve…) see this inside a Daven 600/600 T-pad:
Getting a bunch of these Davens to try out; I am lucky as I have a full balanced line level between preamp and amp, 600ohms out and 600ohms; so I can test some juicy Daven T-Pads…more later.