Finally received the 20db Rothwells. Sound good, canceled all the noise, but unfortunately also too much attenuation. Find myself fully maxing the pots on the Foreplay. I also picked up a pair of Harrison 12db as shipping from UK for Rothwell’s was taking extra long due to a postal strike. The 12dbs are near perfect. Still a very small amount of hum hiss on cd setting and a noticeable amount on higher volume with the phono, but nothing noticeable when playing music and it gets plenty loud enough.
So now contemplating either the 10 or 15db Rothwells as the long term solution as I believe those are the better attenuators.. I feel caught in between these two options. At 10db I would likely get more noise, but slightly better gain, which would be ok. At 15db, less noise but also less gain than the 12db. I tried switching to 4ohm tap thinking that would approximate the 15db with the current 12db Harrison’s, but I really don’t notice any difference between 4 and 8ohms on playback? Should be 3db reduction …..correct? Maybe this experiment is not accurate reflection of a 15db attenuator. Noise floor seemed be unchanged as well.
Any further thoughts would be appreciated before I select one or the other variation of Rothwell’s. Thanks. Carl
