For any who are curious, the official Madrigal response was that a CD player like my Meridian 508.24, when coupled with extremely low impedance ICs can produce a rather high output signal. Lowering the input level on the pre-amp is apparently normal, and will not effect sound quality in any way. I will monitor this carefully as I break the unit in, and make sure I notice no sound degredation.
Input Level for analog signals on Proceed AVP?
Okay, okay, I know this belongs in the Home Theater section, but this is strictly a pre-amp question. I took the store unit home to demo and everything was fine. Just got my new one here out of the box and now when I play CDs it keeps putting up the "ADC clipping" warning and cutting out the signal. The manual says I need to adjust the Input Level and lower it until this warning goes away. So I started lowering the level....-9 dB later!--I finally find a level where the signal does not cut out! My question is--"What?" Why in the world would a pre-amp need this feature? And why did the store unit not do this? The only thing I can think of is I just upgraded my interconnects and speaker cable to BEL wire. The wire supposedly has some insanely low impedance value--but this should not have any effect, right? Yes, I have an email in to Madrigal, but I wanted to cover my bases and see if anyone else came across this situation.