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Old 01-04-2018, 10:36 PM
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Doug Young Doug Young is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Mountain View, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrErikJ View Post
I think Doug's point is not that you're incorrect in your assessment but that the difference you're observing is not due to impedance.
Exactly. Different gear sounds different. Trying to figure out why gets trickier, and assuming it's only due to impedance is likely not the answer, unless you're down in the range where it matters (very low impedances). You can do tests where you change only impedance, using preamps that support variable or switchable impedance, so that all the other variables are kept constant. There you are changing only one factor, and you can hear what the effect of impedance is, without any other factors to confuse things (I posted a recording of one example - and there are differences with some values - check it out).

When you compare a PADI vs a Red-Eye, you're getting many other variables, and it's hard to say why you might prefer one over the other. I have never used a PADI, so I have no thoughts on it. I do have a Red-Eye and it sounds quite nice to me, but I suspect it's the clarity, simple clean circuit, and the treble control, which is very effective (tho that's just a guess - who knows why it sounds good). But I have a bunch of other preamps, Venue, Felix, SPS-1, Raven Labs PMB-1, all of which also work great with K&Ks even tho they have different impedances.
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