Emotiva Control Freak replacement?

Equipment / Electronics / Gear / Accessories Source Gear / Other
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Sadly, the Control Freak was lost due to being discontinued, depriving future generations of Audiophiles from enjoying such a simple and well built physical volume knob right on their desk… Well, at least that’s what I’ve felt trying to look for a pre-amp. Along comes the TC Electronic Level Pilot…s.
Anywho, there are three variants:
Pilot - uses dual 3 pin XLR (Claims fully balanced)
Pilot C - uses 3.5mm TRS connections
Pilot X - Um… yeah… I can’t find any differences between this and the original…
Luckily, Monoprice can save the day with cheap XLR to RCA adapters:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=4783&gclid=CjwKCAiAqqTuBRBAEiwA7B66hbl94qnp0DOu8zMRohiNKG1mZ2W1rbv7Z_f3h6op8h6-wwSr3eOTDxoCQeUQAvD_BwE
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=4775

Now that we’ve got the craziness out of the way, has anyone had a chance to use these? If so, can you give any feedback to them?

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Interesting, that does look like a good alternative to the control freak

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XLR is balanced. RCA is unbalanced.
To get unbalanced to be balanced, there are DI-Boxes.

So… Why should the reverse just work?

As for the TC El. Level Pilot, the reviews on Thomann.de (Big instrument, Studio equipment and PA retailer in Germany/Europe), the thing is kind of cheap shit in expensive shell.

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Checking thomann I don’t see the reviews you are talking about, are they not shown?

Typically I would recommend something like the mackie big knob passive, jbl nano patch + or the Fostex PC-1 if someone wanted a monitor control

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I would be feeding from an unbalanced source to begin with, so as far as I know, I should be okay in this use case.
When I tried looking around, it bounced around from people liking it, to reviews being non-existant, to bad reviews… You get the picture.

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You can convert a balanced signal to unbalanced pretty easily, but like you said converting unbalanced to balanced typically requires a converter box of some sort

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Maybe because they are in German?

From what I see, the internal potentiometer gives up after 3 to 10 months of use.

Speaking from my hobby electrician perspective, strongly depends.

  • Transformer balance is fine with having one leg grounded.
  • Electronic balance with differential op-amps should leave one leg “floating” i.e. unconnected. Else the signal available will be cut in half.
  • Impedance balance does not care as it is “fake balance” in a way (still balanced though)
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Ah, that could be it. On the us site it does not show those reviews, well thanks for the info because I wouldn’t have known that lol (not german)

I guess if you were really dedicated, you could replace the internal pot lol

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Generally for both consumer and pro audio, you shouldn’t have any issues getting a properly wired balanced to unbalanced connector, and there shouldn’t be a huge difference, but the signal will be unbalanced of course. I mainly mean using a balanced switcher with unbalanced connections, a balanced headphone with an xlr to 3.5 mm converter, or something like a cable with xlr female on one end and rca male on the other

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Going with those options, I’d have to use at least one of the following options, or use adapters… I don’t know the electrical side of things, but should there be any impact on changing from 3.5mm or 1/4" to RCA?



With the Big Knob Passive, I’d have to result to multiple adapters or different cables… I guess my bigger concern is if I retire the pre-amp, or swap to something else, not having a use for the cable

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There really shouldn’t be an issue/difference. But for the models with 1/4 inch inputs, you would want something like this

Edit: that’s a different thumbnail and title then what I linked lol

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Nope.
GND stays GND, Left stay Left, Right stay Right

My personal cable mess includes a 3/8 stereo to 1/4 mono, several 3/8 to rca, rca to 1/4 and one 1/4 stereo to 2x 1/4 mono.