High Gain?

garyalex

It’s very simple.

If it goes loud enough for you with your gear, you don’t need extra gain.

Remember what Nelson Pass says about "added gain" that’s not needed. Your just adding more noise with it, by throwing away vital "source signal" to ground with the volume control, just to so you can make it back up again with that extra "added gain" stage, which introduces more noise and distortions.

Cheers George

garyalex High Gain?

I’ve read in more than one thread that the First Watt SIT-3 should be used with a high-gain preamp. I’m wondering what the number is that determines whether a preamp’s line section is considered to be high gain or not?

It will all depend on how much your source gives out, and how efficient your speakers are. You can clip the FW Sit-3 with just 3v in from the source

Try this put your source direct into your Sit-3 and play a known track that starts of very quite and builds up.
Then you’ll know how much "if any" gain a pre will need, you could get away with just a $49 Schiit Sys passive or low gain Schiit Freya pre

Cheers George