My a-musical woes, mentioned briefly above, were traced to the ML2s' fading drivers.  This report is written after the 6N6Ps were repalced.  As it turns out, the TAP did not figure into the problems, and minor system changes do not effect things as markedly now as when the bad drivers were messing with the sound and the music both.

Based on CD bypass and comparing CDs with "the same" LP the TAP is as much like "nothing" as I have experienced to date.  Since I had futzed with my phono source, unwittingly trying to compensate for the ML2s' fading drivers, I had to re-tune the system starting with CD as a basis once I'd discovered my mistake and replaced the bad 6N6Ps.

I am pleased with the TAP's "neutrality" in my system, which features short ICs, low impedance feeding the TAP and (apparently) high-enough input impedance into the ML2s.  Basically, there's not much to tell about the TAP.  Music gets through/comes across fine, so any subtractive effect I might be missing is not wrecking the music.  The TAP does not "overload" from anything I have fed it.  It makes NO sound of its own, even cranked wide open.  One caveat might be that studio "techniques" are now utterly apparent, albeit this does not interfere with the music in my system.  Although the TAP does not "highlight" engineering hijinks or poor recording, it does seem to render this sort of stuff as apart from the music, and I like this.

I am not "recommending" this component, just reporting, and in this case results are positive.  You can link from the BENT Audio website to a white paper on the S&B 102 [TVC] if you want to run the math and/or are concerned about possible effects of impedance/loads, etc., or if you are simply one to do your homework.

Best regards,
Paul S

Romy the Cat wrote:

Sure, there is nothing wrong with a transformer-attenuator if it has a pure restive load but as we know it is never the case. If we need a drop voltage elsewhere then we use resistors, right? We do not we use transformer-attenuators everywhere else instead resistors. Why then we need suddenly it use a transformer-attenuator as a volume control?

It goes without saying that the transformer attenuator has a LOT of problems, LOADS of problems with impedence etc.  It is a terribly flawed thing.  BUT every audio part is a compromise.  The real question is whether despite these audible flaws (which will present additive distortions in coloration and timbre I expect), the transformer attenuator has fewer of the additive and subtractive distortions that resistor-based solutions have. 

I haven't listened so I can't speak eruditely about it, but I hope perhaps Romy has had the opportunity to have heard these transformer attenuators and can comment on how they sound in an optimal setting?

Adrian

morricab wrote:

…. putting the attenuator AFTER the gain stage has negative consequences for the sound….

Well, yes and no. In the new 6 channels version of Super Milq I will be use 2 stepped attenuators: for Injection Channel and for the Tweeters. Both of them will be line level, sitting between the input jack and the first stage grid, so essentially the resistors will be driving a few inches of cable – not a big deal at all, particularly cince I do not need in both channels any LF…

Surely the advantages to roll off voltage at line liven are very obvious, and do not forget that you have the tubes ruining at lover grid current – always helps… However, I would propose that the line-level advantages are inversely-proportionally to frequency. When we have any more or less LF driver then it has a lot of reactance that is being return back to amplifier. A speaker acts like a motor-generator sending the waves across the cable. Many aspects of dumpling in place in there and when we put a resistor (regardless of its location) then the resistor begins to play in this game. I, for instance, clearly hear change in sound when I put .3dB divider on my LF section.

However, with HF the effect is different. The tweeter reactance back to amp is negligible, dumping is way less critical and the presents of a resistor at speaker level is not so critical. I will still go for line level though in my case…