I, too am faced with having to swap interconnects to achieve the best result. Surely this will wear out the plugs and sockets before too long. My AMR DAC/Preamp (which I am using as a preamp), has an interesting feature in that when you turn the volume up to 0dB, it automatically bypasses the volume...

Thanks.
I can solder.
I used to work in a Hifi shop in the 1980s and made custom cables.
I still do a bit for my lighting business.

Thanks Kara

I'd love to wire up my own passive as you describe.
With the finest sockets, cables and source selector.

If only I had a clue where to start.

Yes. It was the connection to the direct that was spoiling it. Tried it with the Merdian 808 connected to the CD input and no other devices connected. Worked fine via fixed output into the NVA. And I tried it with variable output with the NVA turned to max. Neither as good as the Meridian direct int...

I'll give it another go tonight with a CD player I know well on the one input.

Thanks all.
I know where I stand with this now.

To be honest, I could do that by using the AMR that I have.
In fact, and I haven't tried this, if I turn the AMR up to 0bD, it switches out the volume control anyway.
It's only looking g at the NVA problem that reminded me that this was possible.

Ah.
Thanks for that.
In that case, it's not needed.
I have to say, in the faint sound that was coming from the phono input, it sounded very transparent.

Really. Well that's new information. And welcome.
So what is direct about it?

Because I don't want the NVA's volume control to operate the Merdian CD player. I wanted to bypass the NVA volume control. The Merdian sounds fantastic direct into the power amp with nothing in-between.