W4S ST-1000, How Loud Should It Play?

Almarg- Thanks for correcting the impedance. I'm looking at this a little differently. I'm thinking a 170W speaker should be at maximum power at well less than half volume level.
Ciphercomplete- Thanks for that info. And I think you hit the nail on the head. The 5V output should be driving the amp to full output well before maximum volume.
Mapman-I tried talking at normal volume levels and had no problem hearing.
Demianm- I agree. My amp should be playing louder.
Mafgan- I'm not looking for more volume, I'm just wondering why it's not there.
Daverz- I don't think there's a limiting feature anywhere. When I talked to W4S they didn't mention any.
Mapman- That might be part of it but I don't think it explains all of the discrepancy.
Face- I have balanced cables from W4S.

I took Russ69's advice and called W4S. I got kind of a conflicting answer. On the one hand the guy I talked to has the exact same set-up with speakers of similar sensitivity and he also has to turn his pre-amp up quite a bit to play loud. But on the other hand, he agrees that the 5V pre-amp output should easily overdrive the amp. So I am back at square one. Well, almost. Thanks to all of your help I have a better handle on what's going on. So thanks to everyone who took the time to respond.

is there a high/low gain setting on the preamp? How about the amps, do they have a high or low power setting?

When I tried some Crown amps as an experiment on my system, they were rated at 300watts per channel and 600 watts bridged. They did not seem that much louder than the tube amps I was using previously.

Ciao,
Audioquest4life

Steve, thanks for the update. Some basic questions: What is your source component? If it is a computer-based source, are you sure that there isn't a software volume control in the path? And have you tried a variety of material at the 65 setting, to be sure that the issue isn't simply due to the particular recordings having been mastered with peaks that are significantly below maximum, and/or to the particular recordings having a high ratio of peak volume to average volume?

Regards,
-- Al

When I ran a DAC-2 into a ST-500, my volume was usually in the 50+ range if I wanted to listen loud. The speakers used at the time are about 83dB. I fixed it by adding a STP-SE, and it improved the SQ too. ;)

Here's what I found in a review at 6 moonts:

"When the minimum level for the corresponding input is set to 5, the maximum level will be 65. Basically the min level is the amount of steps skipped in the first position. When used, the min level is subtracted from the 70 possible steps total. With an inefficient system requiring a volume level of 12 to hear anything, a min level of 10 removes steps 1-10 and max equals 60. The volume table offers from 3db to 1dB steps as follows: 0 = mute; steps 1-9 = 3dB; steps 10-24 = 2dB; steps 25-70 = 1dB. In terms of output voltage on RCA when min is set to 0, 62 = 1V, 68 = 2V. For XLR, the 1, 2, 3 and 4V out equivalents are 56, 62, 65 and 68. These will be the values to use in fixed output mode when 70 max at 2.6/5.2V on RCA/XLR is too high for either the following preamp's input stage or a system's overall gain structure."

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/wyred4/dac_2.html