Hi,

All I can say is that the Glasshouse one sounded really odd. I suspect the resistors used, despite being "Dale/Vishay" are of questionable quality. Only two of them are in circuit per step yet they managed to make the music really thin, lean and threadbare with a substantial loss of resolution. I suspect a £ 1 Alps carbon Pot would have made a more realistic sound. It reminded me of Kondo's condemnation of stepped attenuators he gave once, he called it "hilarious dummy sound".

The DACT didn't do any of that, suggesting that the results from the Glasshouse passive where not due to a system mismatch. The DACT sounded to my ears "typhically resistive passive", clean, open but laking some drive, get up and go and dynamics.

Rob's Pre sounded rather nice in context but gave up some resolution and dynamics to the best, but in a perfectly agreeable way. Interresting that a simple Pot plus Valve Stage and output transformer managed so notably better than DACT's "high tech passive".

That said, this kind of circuit has always been my preference if an active preamp is really needed (see my Article on the Euridice in the London Live DIY HiFi Circle newsletter and also the DIYHiFiSupply Tram). I still might build me one like that, but based around around the most recent version of the Euridice (battery bias, S&B TVC as Volume control, S&B superpermalloy parallel feed output transformer and S&B 50% SuperpermalloyAnode Choke)

Past that I felt the MFA PMP did what it was supposed to do, get out of the way of the music.

Ciao T