Rothwell Attenuators

Could anyone tell me the pro's and con's of the Rothwell Attenuators. Ones i'm looking at are the balanced version.
My volume control starts at roughly 7 o'clock by the time it reaches 8 o'clock thats a good listening level and 9 o'clock is loud but only on newer discs older discs you can turn it upto 11 o'clock anybody got any experience of this
thanks

 

Well, in my experience, the pro is that you get a more useable range on the volume control, but this is far outweighed by the con, which is that the music sounds much duller with the Rothwells in place.

 

Agreed!

With the Rothwells in place in my system, the sound was 'rounded off' with less detail and life to the music.

 

not my experience at all.

mine sit on the cdp side of my pre. the volume pot is much more userable and if any think it sounds better certainly not worse.

i wouldn't mind trying the balanced version too. Audio research Ls2 to evo4


actually i've no time to listen to it right now let alone play with it so scrub that

 

I've heard/read that the attenuators need time to 'burn in', but unfortunately there's only a limited time window in which to return them if they don't work in your system.

 

they are almost cheap as chips though - at least the phono ones are. how much are the xlr ones

 

the xlr ones are £69

 

Try running the cd and amp unbalanced! mind you I'm using a similar set up to you and don't have that problem.

 

In my experiance of them they completely killed my Linn Mimik.

I could use more volume but the flat undynamic sound that was completely robbed of rythm made them painful to listen to.

I used them for a while in a 2nd system but found I still prefered the sound without them although they were much better here than on the Linn system.

 

but then again new resitors can often sound dull. has anyone used these over a longer time period? it would be interesting to see if the sound opens up following burn in?

 

Tried them & they did round the sound off a bit so gave them back - these were 'burnt in' one's from a dealer. Wasn't too impressed by the fact that there was a lot of solder in these devices which couldn't help the sound too much. (Inside was just a couple of 0.25W resistors to form a voltage divider, the socket itself seemed to be made from a couple of standard quality phono sockets & plugs, hence the lot of solder holding them together).

Also tried a set of Russ Andrews leads with built in attenuation & these were a lot better but price was a much higher.

J

 

If anyone's looking for a pair of XLR Rothwell Attenuators I have a pair I no longer need

Michael.