Can I borrow or someone pop round….

[tackleberry]

A few years ago I borrowed a music first pre for my ATC, and I didn’t think it was for me and bought the ATC ca2 as it was better.

Fast forward, and I now have tannoy Arden mk1 and a leak stereo 20 with the ATC pre which sounds great and I’m currently very happy with.

I can’t stop the itch that I need to try an mfa pre in my system again to see if I’m missing ‘something special’ as people tell me.

Would anyone come along with one or let me borrow one, I’m dying to know.

 

[graham67]

With your super efficient Ardens you may find the stepped attenuator of the MFA pre doesn't give you many usable volume slots.
Of course MFA do sell models with a different set of steps better suited to sensitive speaks. But these are rare used.
Another passive pre worth seeking out is the glasshouse c core tvc. I preferred this to the MFA copper classic and the volume range was much more useable with my 15" HPDs (same as yours)
Glad you finding the leak tannoy combo to your taste. It's an oldie but a goodie!

 

[tackleberry]

Ok,

It might just be an itch I don’t need to scratch, the ATC is moderate/into loud at quarter to 12, I can also attenuate the 851n a little if I like. I’ll have a look at the glasshouse.

It seems to be I’m told that the mfa are by far best by most peoples standards. Is there much in it with other mid priced models.. I’ve had a few recommendations in another post..

 

[Gizza]

Have you also considered a Townshend Allegri+? It uses autoformers and is very well regarded. I love mine to bits. It blew my Audio Synthesis Passion resistor-based passive (itself possibly one of the best of this kind) out of the water. A big plus for this passive is that there is no need to worry about inpedance mismatches with the power amp.
I've seen them for as 'little' as £1150 used.

 

[tackleberry]

Have you also considered a Townshend Allegri+? It uses autoformers and is very well regarded. I love mine to bits. It blew my Audio Synthesis Passion resistor-based passive (itself possibly one of the best of this kind) out of the water. A big plus for this passive is that there is no need to worry about inpedance mismatches with the power amp.
I've seen them for as 'little' as £1150 used.

How does the impedance match up with a leak on the allegri?

My issue is buying something that’s got more gain than what I have now

 

[It Cost How Much!?!]

I would also consider a Khozmo 64 step with the better internals. I have had 2 of them and great units foraround 400 to 500.

If you can find one, an Anatek 1.0 is really good.

 

[Gizza]

How does the impedance match up with a leak on the allegri?

My issue is buying something that’s got more gain than what I have now

If you read up on the Allegri+ (Not sure about the previous 'Allegri'), you'll see that there will be no impedance mismatch with any power amp, regardless of make and model.
As for gain, it is unity gain (no gain) when set to maximum on the volume control. All other volume settings are lower, obviously. From my understanding, the beauty of this and other transformer based passives are that each volume setting is simply a different 'tap' off the transformer. A lower volume is achieved by using a smaller portion of the transformer, whereas a resistor based pre uses varying values of resistors to achieve the required attenuation. Any 'unwanted' portion of the signal is converted and lost as heat.