will
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After playing around with your new toys, if you are interested in Steve's voltage chart, it would likely be easier to get.
Thinking more about the small pot adjustments, I don't use my CSP3 much for headphones, and as it turned out, my headphones are pretty good volume wise when changing over to them from speaker listening. So the pot settings I use are fine for going back and forth, but mine were set up by-sound for my speaker system listening. So I have not explored the small pots used to make the transition between headphone use and speaker use listening friendly, but think I recall the pots can be, in part, about adjusting for different impedance headphones to work well volume-wise when changing back and forth between speakers and phones??? So settings that you make for the speaker system listening would not blow your head off if you change to phones... or the phones being too quiet and having to turn the master way up, and blowing you away if you forget when changing back to the speakers??? Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will comment further on this.
Using my CSP3 mainly for system tuning, I find the small pots are really handy for balancing the signal for right and left balance. Especially if you use a lot of tubes, left/right balance can go subtly off, making the sound stage a little off. And you can easily compensate for right-left room sound with these adjustments... Or maybe your stereo system is balanced, and the room makes the sound stage seem a little off balance. Then the pots are your friend for fine tuning your sound stage.
Personally, I found the adjusting the pots, front and back useful for fine tuning the sound also. I seem to recall a lot of folks running the first set of pots behind the master volume on 10, wide open, and the next set back, 5-6???? But before modifying mine, I ended up liking 9 in the front, and 7-8 in the back, usually 7... It sounds to me like fine-tuning balances between the front set and back set of pots is balancing the tubes to best pull the beauty from working well together... Here, these settings are based on mostly using an ECC189 input, and a pair of nice 6922/ECC88s for output. And I can't say exactly why, but I almost always preferred the front one down a bit from wide open, mellowing the push of the sound to my tastes.
So if you were to choose to try what I found best in this system on yours for a start, and setting the CSP3 up for gain riding rather than system volume, I would start with your current amp system set for your average listening volume. Then, if you try my settings on the small pots, start with your master volume all the way down. Then bring the CSP master up to where you like it for normal listening.... up to more-or-less the average listening volume you got from the Marantz/amp volume setting without the CSP3. This master level will depend on your amp power etc, and how the CSP3 interacts with it, and it may well be different than mine. So start easy!
But if this puts the master where it still has a good adjustability.... (not way down, or way up on the knob setting) and if you like the sound, then play with the pots a little and see what you think... If you lower one or the other pair, you will need a higher baseline setting on the master for the same volume. Or if you raise a pair of pots, you will end up with a lower master volume for the same volume. I like my potentiator sound best on the higher side of its center, so mine is set this way, but it is fine more in the middle, and would work fine with a usual range of 9-11 o'clock, or 11-1, or where I use it... I just prefer the sound of this pot on the higher side, and based on the small pot settings I like best. But you mainly need to be left with a usable range for tuning.
Then if you want to tune the CSP3 together with the amp for the best sound you can get from the combination at average listening levels ... I would go back to my earlier explanations for gain tuning between amp and pre, with some form of "gain riding" used to find a relatively neutral balance from blending of the CSP3 and amp master volume settings, while also bringing in a nice touch of tube enhancement.... potentially more lucidity, fluidity, warmth, dynamics etc... With minor gain riding, find gain settings that leave you with a neutral spectral balance for your average recordings, and the sweetness from the CSP3 active in a way you prefer. This could end you up at a more-or-less set and forget level, or a good average sound as a beginning. Being relatively neutral, it is a good place to tune warmer/fuller, or a little leaner and more open by increasing or decreasing the CSP3 in the average listening level balancing. This could be a nice place to start for optimal sound, and for future system sound fine-tuning, or to tune "off" recordings into a better sound.
And I agree, my setting have changed through time.... so maybe a good start, but you might end up likeing yours different, so have fun learning it and finding what you love.
For example, after starting to pull more resolution and flow with bypass caps, connectors, resistors and wires... with the tube sets I was using, I ended up preferring 8-10 in the front, and 8 in the back. Finally, I found myself adjusting only the front one to fine tune a tube set, or to fine-tune right/left balance, the back staying at 8 here. So I measured that output pot resistance with those pots set at 8, and replaced the pots with a really good sounding resistor, increasing transparency and flow. So play with it once you get used to how it works...
I hope this helps open thoughts on how the small pots can be used for sound tuning and otherwise. Once I find a great balance from the small pots, and the master gain, for my system and room, when I had two sets, I was mainly set and forget on those little pots, doing any fine-tuning with the master. And if I change tubes, I often play a little with the small pot settings front and back, to be sure, sometimes changing adjustments by a notch, but most often they end up the same as they were after testing the new tube set for overall sound quality. Now I will on occasion adjust the remaining front pots (now stepped attenutors) for sound with tube changes, mostly set at 8 though, but sometimes 9 or 10.
Then if a tube set needs a little right/left adjustment, I do that to get the sound stage right. In my system/room it is amazing how much this can help... The sound stage can sound great, but just a little weak on one side compared to the other. Then dialing it in a bit, the sound stage slots into a really wild beauty, clearly maximizing my system potential in relation to this room. When I get the R/L balance just right, powering up the weaker side just so, it is like the whole thing expands and slots into place. Usually it becomes deeper, with the players and spatial information between them more differentiated, and sound stage "boundaries" I did not know were there just expand. The room boundaries before this are already way gone here, the stage wide and deep, and extending beyond walls, but when I get the R/L balance just right, it all becomes a little bigger, a little more defined, sometimes notably deeper, decays more "real" and audible, and subtle decays feeling like they are fading more into infinite space.
On using the CSP3 as a volume adjuster, I don''t have much experience with this either, preferring gain tuning for sound. But I think this is what Archie is referring to as an option.... If used for more traditional preamp use I think the CSP3 would become the main system volume adjuster. From your description of your pre inside your amp, the CSP3 would all or mostly replace the pre in your amp as your new volume adjuster. Using it this way, the amp part would be set, perhaps functionally be wide open, and the volume controlled by your CSP3 preamp.
So as I understand it, if you want the CSP3 to work more in the traditional sense of a preamp, your amp would be set with little or no attenuation, and used all for power.... and the CSP3 would be your volume adjuster. In this case, I don't know from experience what to suggest with the small pots and master pot setup, maybe the instructions quoted from Steve, or a variation of those....remembering the CSP3 has a lot of gain, and especially if your amp is powerful, be careful with initial CSP settings!
But again, I hope someone more knowledgeable about using the pre this way will comment.
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