Preamp has too much gain

One of the few things that designers will agree upon is that the closer you operate to maximum volume then the better the sound. Volume controls always take away. The ideal system would have an overall gain (source + preamp + power amp + speaker efficiency) that plays a particular recording at the ideal volume level with the volume control all the way up.

I’m not talking about loud volume, but the maximum that a system will allow. The problem is that the level from recordings varies widely and we want to listen to different types of music at different volumes, so the maximum volume is often too loud.

If you consistently have the volume control way closer to the minimum than the maximum then the volume control is choking some of the life out of your system.

The electronics should be run at the highest possible gain, at a given supply voltage, where feasible. For example, if the line stage is designed for 20dB of gain, and you run it at 5dB, the THD will go up tremendously, and the circuit may even become unstable. The higher gain also gives you the best S/N ratio.

It's the right way to pad down the signal level, then to lower the gain. The noise in the system is typically 'White', so the less gain, the less useful dynamic range.

I also had a gain issue. I installed rothwell 10db attenuators between my cd player and pre-amp and that solved the problem.

Chuck

The electronics should be run at the highest possible gain, at a given supply voltage, where feasible.

I don't understand. How would you lower the gain of a preamp without major reconstruction? THD comes from operating an active device in a non-linear manner. The operating point (bias) of the active device determines where you are on the curve and this isn't really related to gain so THD really isn't related to gain except in the sense that it will increase if you allow the signal to become so large it swings into the non-linear portions of the device's curves. It's a bit more complex than that since bias and operating points can affect gain but that's the basics. Maybe I'm missing something here.