Psychological effects of volume control

I once bought a used, more "sophisticated" preamp and encountered the same confusion; I was a monkey scratching its head. Mine has three volume controls, even worse. I sent it to Lamm to get it checked out, partly for the volume reason.You get used to something working in a slightly different way.

Yes, it is better that you are now reaching 11 instead of 9, less of the attenuator in the signal path. 

Silly question perhaps, nevertheless, I'll ask the resident experts herein.

Would having to raise the volume at the pre-amp (in the OPs case) be the same if he had an *integrated amp*?

In my experience when an amp is at 12 or above, even when all source components are powered off, if I put my ear to the speakers tweeter I can hear enough of a "sizzle" to know with certainty the amp is powered on. There is a point where the volume can be lowered enough where the sizzle is inaudible. Isn't any amp distorting that much more as the volume raised? And if so, then why would it be desirable to raise the volume control instead of lowering it to achieve the same decibel level?

@shadorne 

I surmise you may not have subscribed to this thread. I'd be appreciative if you were to provide an answer to the questions I've asked in my previous posts herein. 

@gdhal

It is always best to have your line level equipment run close to maximum when the sound is as loud as you can stand. Just like analog tape should always be recording close to the red on peaks. The idea is you want to use the full dynamic range of your equipment. If you never exceed 1/100 of the volume on an amp then you have lost a lot of dynamic range and sone important details may be close to the noise floor.

The best electronic equipment I know of has a S/N in excess of -130 dB which is amazing and will never give you the slightest hint of hiss. Most conventional gear is around -100 dB. Also some Class AB power amps are quite noisy at 1 watt whereas their specifications are impressive at full power where they perform better (these amps can hiss a lot on a 103 dB sensitivity speaker) . All line level gear should be Class A so Performance is often good through the range except at low levels.

Integrated amps are the same - if you never get past 9 AM then the amp is too powerful for your needs/speakers and you are losing dynamic range and S/N performance.

Another reason to keep levels as high as possible without clipping or saturation is to minimize ground loops and RF/EM interference on line level interconnects...