Upon further thought, I may be wrong. In a full function preamplifier (phono and line inputs) the line level inputs connect to the attenuators. So depending upon the type of attenuator, there would be an effect on overload. Sorry. For phono, the attenuators do not affect phono overload, is what I was thinking.
Right ( I think i understand your point). Most of the time the flow is:
- Phono stage with lots of gain and equalization -->
100X -> 2000X @ 1 kHz - volume attenuators, which will lower this level commensurate with your desired volume level, and always therefore within the overload range
- active line stage with a little amplification/gain, maybe 2-6X.
Its very rare to have too much phono gain. Its hard to get without noise and distortion, so most of the time one struggles for enough
Note there also may be a transformer at the very front end. Those are some fancy, expensive transformers.