Samson C Control

[woods]

Wonder what this volume control would sound like? Want to use it to control the volume of a set of Genelec monitors in a Massivo, Varimu, HEDD home mastering chain. Do you think it would negate the strengths of the other components?

See the following review and pics.


http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep0...es/samsonc.htm

woods

[Scott Peterson]

It does work well - I have a C-Control and have used it about a year now. Sonically, it seems pretty neutral, but I don't use if for mastering.

I no longer need it, so if you want a mint condition one - cheap; email me.

[Critic]

I got one a while ago. Seemed like a great concept with a nice group of features.

It did not work out of the box. Not one in or out conducted any signal.

[ProFool]

I like The C*Que 8, seems good to have 2 or more in every room....

[Ruphus]

Compared with cans through the DAC1 the C-que8s stereo field seems slightly narrower I´d say, but I believe for what it is it is a good box. Others meant Samson stuff wouldn´t last though, let´s see how this box will be doing.

http://gearslutz.com/board/showthrea...ighlight=cque8

Ruphus

[Duardo]

Considering the gear you're looking to use it with, you may want to look into one of the Coleman boxes. They use all passive components (except for the headphone amps) and are hand-built, and while I haven't heard too many complaints about the Samson I'd be surprised if it were as neutral as the Coleman stuff.

PreSonus has a new one on their website that looks good and falls in between price-wise. Be interesting to hear how it sounds (or doesn't sound)...

-Duardo

[ulysses]

Originally posted by woods
Wonder what this volume control would sound like? Want to use it to control the volume of a set of Genelec monitors in a Massivo, Varimu, HEDD home mastering chain. Do you think it would negate the strengths of the other components?

I had one of these on loan for a while and used it a bit. It's well built, sturdy, and has a great set of functions. I really like the lighted buttons. I didn't expect much from it in terms of sound quality, but I really didn't hear anything obviously wrong with it. It's not noisy, seems to have flat frequency response, and doesn't add any obvious coloration to the sound. I supposed if you did some AB testing between this unit and a straight wire, you might find something to complain about. I don't know. For under $100, it's pretty good. I probably fall into the same trap as anybody else does, thinking that if my ears aren't made of tin I ought to hear something wrong with such a cheap box made by Samson. But maybe they got it right after all.

Originally I was looking into the possibility of hacking into the thing for some component upgrades to fix any problems I found; but since I didn't really find any problems, and the layout and use of surface-mount parts and lack of schematic would have made it a little bit of a pain to make any changes (or even decide what to change), I didn't bother. I saw some parts in there that weren't world class and some that were pretty good. But nothing that would stop a really good circuit design from sounding good. Since I didn't draw out the schematic, I don't know how smart the circuit is. The wall wart is more than adequate in terms of current ability, which gives at least the superficial impression Samson did what needed to be done to make the thing perform well. It may not be on par with the likes of Crane Song, but it's not down at the Alesis level either.

I would like to make some good clean comparison tests to see how the thing compares to a piece of wire. But if I had a box that could easily perform clean, level-matched switching between two sources, then I wouldn't need the Samson. I'm trying to decide if I should buy a Samson or build a mostly passive device that performs many of the same functions as cleanly as possible. Since I'd have to build that box just to fully evaluate the Samson, I probably will. But not right now.

[lubaloo]

Originally Posted by ulysses

I had one of these on loan for a while and used it a bit. It's well built, sturdy, and has a great set of functions. I really like the lighted buttons. I didn't expect much from it in terms of sound quality, but I really didn't hear anything obviously wrong with it. It's not noisy, seems to have flat frequency response, and doesn't add any obvious coloration to the sound. I supposed if you did some AB testing between this unit and a straight wire, you might find something to complain about. I don't know. For under $100, it's pretty good. I probably fall into the same trap as anybody else does, thinking that if my ears aren't made of tin I ought to hear something wrong with such a cheap box made by Samson. But maybe they got it right after all.

Originally I was looking into the possibility of hacking into the thing for some component upgrades to fix any problems I found; but since I didn't really find any problems, and the layout and use of surface-mount parts and lack of schematic would have made it a little bit of a pain to make any changes (or even decide what to change), I didn't bother. I saw some parts in there that weren't world class and some that were pretty good. But nothing that would stop a really good circuit design from sounding good. Since I didn't draw out the schematic, I don't know how smart the circuit is. The wall wart is more than adequate in terms of current ability, which gives at least the superficial impression Samson did what needed to be done to make the thing perform well. It may not be on par with the likes of Crane Song, but it's not down at the Alesis level either.

I would like to make some good clean comparison tests to see how the thing compares to a piece of wire. But if I had a box that could easily perform clean, level-matched switching between two sources, then I wouldn't need the Samson. I'm trying to decide if I should buy a Samson or build a mostly passive device that performs many of the same functions as cleanly as possible. Since I'd have to build that box just to fully evaluate the Samson, I probably will. But not right now.

hi there
did you ever do this?
are you still happily using your samson?
cheers

[slaves666]

I have a C consol and it works great. I had to patch the talkback to goto the headphones, but besides that it does everything I want. I just got it serviced because the master volume knob died, but the warantee is for a year. For the price alone it is worth it. If I had lots of cash, the Dangerous controller is nice, but its over 10x the price for 'relatively' the same functions.

[conguero]

I've had mine for over two years now and it works great. No problems and it does not distort. Great solution for digital set up without talkback. I like mine very much!

[Kyle Ashley]

I bought 3 pieces of Samson gear a couple of years ago. Here's my experience:

C-Control...worked OK...volume pot went bad after 2 months...L/R tracking was shot and scratchy.

C-Que 8 ......dead out of the box

S PatchPlus....still working well with no issues.

For monitoring, I moved up to a Coleman box which has been great. thumbsup

[studiokatz]

Originally Posted by woods

Wonder what this volume control would sound like? Want to use it to control the volume of a set of Genelec monitors in a Massivo, Varimu, HEDD home mastering chain. Do you think it would negate the strengths of the other components?

See the following review and pics.


http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep0...es/samsonc.htm

woods

I use one and I like it a lot.
FWIW my first one was DOA out of the box as well :(
I think it has more to do with monkey business going on at the local Sam Ash stores because I have heard horror stories from friends about gear purchased there being repacked etc.

Anyway, the one oddball thing about the C-Control is that the A outputs are Balanced and the B and C's are not. Also the A and B level control effect each other, or more accurately the A control is a "master" and the B controls the level of just the B monitors.
This can be annoying because you will have to futz with the level controls on your monitors/amps to get equal volume between monitors.

As for sound quality, i'm pretty sure it's passive as far as the audio signal is concerned and the only active electronics are the switching circuits.
I don't hear a difference with it in the circuit and the meters actually match up to my consoles meters.

All in all it's an interesting little gadget that does what they say.

FWIW, I'm not a big fan of Samson gear, but I've been using a Samson Servo 250 Amp in my lounge lizard keyboard rack and it has never let me down despite being abused.
A lot of their gear is dubious at best though but every now and then they come up with a decent unit.

FWIW I returned 2 Mackie Big Jobs because L/R tracking was off and I could hear a difference in sound quality on top of that problem.
Coles also makes some nice units.

Good luck!

[unsilpauly]

i too have a c-control. i have used it for three years with zero problems. everything works well with it for me. the sound is good but im sure thewre are units out there that sound better for sure, although not for 100.00 bucks, more like 5-10 times more than that. if you have more money get something better. if you dont, the c-control will get the job done.

[ulysses]

Originally Posted by lubaloo

hi there
did you ever do this?
are you still happily using your samson?
cheers

I don't actually own the Samson, I just borrowed it to evaluate it for the benefit of the owner. I don't know if he's still using it or not. I haven't built a monitor controller of my own yet, and since there are a few on the market that look promising, it's not a really high priority for me. Other irons in the fire.

Studiokatz-
Having examined the inside of the C-Control quite closely, I can tell you that it is definitely not a passive device. I remember seeing some relays in there, but there were also some op amps. Didn't have nor draw a schematic, so I can't say exactly how it all lays out.

[severe]

Originally Posted by woods

Wonder what this volume control would sound like? Want to use it to control the volume of a set of Genelec monitors in a Massivo, Varimu, HEDD home mastering chain. Do you think it would negate the strengths of the other components?

See the following review and pics.


http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep0...es/samsonc.htm

woods

Owned a C-Control for several months. Worked well for me at the time. Good bang for the buck. Moved up to a Central Station w/remote to keep things passive and to add a few more features. So far so good, no plans to upgrade this part of my chain for a while.

[studiokatz]

Originally Posted by ulysses

I don't actually own the Samson, I just borrowed it to evaluate it for the benefit of the owner. I don't know if he's still using it or not. I haven't built a monitor controller of my own yet, and since there are a few on the market that look promising, it's not a really high priority for me. Other irons in the fire.

Studiokatz-
Having examined the inside of the C-Control quite closely, I can tell you that it is definitely not a passive device. I remember seeing some relays in there, but there were also some op amps. Didn't have nor draw a schematic, so I can't say exactly how it all lays out.

By passive I meant that the signal is not going through any type of gain stages that either boost or attenuate the gain structure.

IOW the volume controls are passive, not active.
Sorry for the confusion.

I think the op amps are for switching the signal, turning on the leds and so forth.

Here is a link to the block diagram.
http://www.samsontech.com/products/p...1650&brandID=2

When the pots get noisy I'll open my up to give it a squirt of Caig and then we will know for sure

For now, i can't hear a difference with it in the circuit or not so i guess whatever is in there seems to work.

I did cover the Samson name with tape though

[js1]

Sounds like I'll be the dissenting opinion. I bought one, but returned it because I thought it colored the sound too much.

js