Calling all conrad johnson afficianos ....

Those are two separate questions.

1 - Gain - As far as I know it's historical and goes back to the days when you might really need it from a tuner or tape or turntable.

2 - Impedance - Cost and simplicity. The single tube / channel CJ preamps are among the very simplest and closest to an ideal preamp you can find. You have a couple of caps and a tube in the signal path and that's about it. So this goes back to their roots again. Of course parallel tubes reduces output impedance for more cost and complexity.

Best,
E

Thanks Eric for sharing your knowledge! I see your points!😃

I have a Classic 2SE and was originally using it with an amp with too high input sens. At 8 o’clock on the volume it was almost too loud. I swapped that amp with a pair of Quicksilver Mid Monos which happened to be much lower input sens. and power rating and  the problem with the volume ramping up too fast was solved.

What was strange is that after swapping speakers, 87dB sens for 99dB efficient ones the volume’s sweet spot seemed more normal than before with the old amp.

Just wanted to add, I do believe that the classic CJ preamps have too high of a sensitivity. In some cases this is an easy mod by an experienced tube tech.

You'll definitely get less noise out of them.

Best,
E

Thanks Eric!