Help. Input from source to high

[Cleet Torres]

Even at one click on the Foreplay volume the music is too loud when using my Roku as source. (I know it's too loud because girlfriend says so.) What to do, I love the Roku.

Is there anyway I can attenuate the cable by using an x-cap, cdc, xcap? Clean out the cable and cut down on the volume. I don't want to spend more money on a passive pre (I know I don't want to because my girlfriend says so - you get the idea) but $50 but so mod to a cable is what will work.

Thanks
Cleet

[fullheadofnothing]

Turn in your hymnals manual to page 24. All shall be revealed.

[John EH]

Even at one click on the Foreplay volume the music is too loud when using my Roku as source. (I know it's too loud because girlfriend says so.) What to do, I love the Roku.

Is there anyway I can attenuate the cable by using an x-cap, cdc, xcap? Clean out the cable and cut down on the volume. I don't want to spend more money on a passive pre (I know I don't want to because my girlfriend says so - you get the idea) but $50 but so mod to a cable is what will work.

Thanks
Cleet

Get a new girlfriend (I recommend Asian) and put a bigger resistor on one of the inputs at the selector switch.

[Cleet Torres]

Should have mentioned - I don't want to mod the Foreplay. It works well with all my other components and it has only a single input. I did a lot of tweaking to get it sounding perfect.

The Roku will be around for a year or so tops, till I put enough away for an "audiophile" level audio streamer. The foreplay and my phono amp and tube dac will be around as long as I have ears.

[Cleet Torres]

John, Julie is Korean. 

[Paul Joppa]

A) It is not a "mod". The Foreplay was designed to handle this specific problem - to have the gain on each input optimized for the particular source used on that input. Many don't bother to make this customization, but it's still the intent of the design. See my notes on "signals and noise" linked off the Community page of the Bottlehead site for more about why I care about this problem.

B) Tell Julie (she sounds smart) this will cost less than a dollar.

C) Don't tell her it's more like $10+ if you use super-premium tantalum resistors for this adjustment. Just skip a couple lattes instead.  :^)

[Cleet Torres]

Hi Paul

No I cannot tell Julie it's less than $10, then she''ll spend the $360 odd remaining I would have spent on a submission on a new pair of shoes.   

I've ripped out the selector on the Foreplay some time ago already, so if I solder in the resistor my seduction and dac have to use the same input ... well they're more important to work well with the Foreplay than the Roku.

But I think indirectly that has given me the solution; I can solder a resistor into my cable. That will have the same net effect right? And then I can xcap the cable with something like a .047uF which will still give about 700ohm resistance at 20K but filter out any RF the Roku is sending down the IC. It does sound a little "peaky" ...

Cleet

[Paul Birkeland]

You can put a pad on the Foreplay end of the Roku cable (NOT the Roku end).  Try a 100K resistor between the center pin on the Foreplay end and the center (hot) conductor on the cable.  This will give you about 18dB of pad with the stock 15K attenuators in the Foreplay.

-PB

(Of course, if you put the selector switch and padding resistors back, you could have the Roku and Seduction play at the same level when switching inputs)

[adamct]

Or.....you could use a pair of these.

Sure, more expensive than a resistor, but not overly expensive, easily removable, and they sound great. I use them on my Crack.

Best regards,
Adam

[adamct]

You can put a pad on the Foreplay end of the Roku cable (NOT the Roku end).  Try a 100K resistor between the center pin on the Roku end and the center (hot) conductor on the cable.

1. I thought you were using pad to mean resistor....I'm confused that in the 2nd sentence quoted above, you say to put the 100k resistor on the Roku end?

2. I'm curious: why does it matter what end the resistor is on?

Best regards,
Adam

[Paul Birkeland]

I ammended my post.

The series resistor and the string of resistors in the Foreplay volume controls will form a pad.

If you have the 100K series resistor on the Roku end, cable capacitance will become an issue.

(@ Adam - those inline attenuators may decrease the input impedance of the Foreplay, as it is run now (I think), it is already too low)

[Cleet Torres]

CB, the 100ohm short works like a charm. I happened to have a T connector with a 100ohm short to load my DL103R handy, and presto.

I'm not sure if I'm imagining things, but the mid range has opened up quite a bit and the peaky top end is gone.

Great great great. 

[Grainger49]

You are using a single input, right?  If so, then soldering a padding resistor in series with the hot lead in your Foreplay end of your cables should give you the same effect.

   .  .  .     I've ripped out the selector on the Foreplay some time ago already, so if I solder in the resistor my seduction and dac have to use the same input ... well they're more important to work well with the Foreplay than the Roku.  .  .  .   

[John EH]

John, Julie is Korean. 

Ok then.  Keep her.

[4krow]

  Yup, I second that guys. My wife is from the Philippines, and I am in heaven.

   About resistors for input level adjustment. I've only tried the tans in a piece of my equipment. Yes the sound is slightly different, and for my integrated, it just became the lesser of two evils.