Super-sensitive volume controls - remedy?

Really the best way to do it right is to send the CDP or DAC back to the manufacturer and ask that they lower the output. Its not that hard for them to do it and usually the result is better sound in addition to less troubles.

We have tried building in attenuators on certain AUX inputs and even though the impedance was no issue for the CDP, the result was a degradation, even with super high quality resistors. IOW attenuators are not a good solution.

One of the bigger problems faced by preamplifier manufacturers is that when Sony and Phillips got together and created the Redbook specification, they really had no clue as to what they were up to.

As a result, they set the digital audio output spec at 4 volts! Why do I say they had no clue?? Because its obvious they never looked at amplifier specs, to find out that no amplifier ever made has needed 4 volts for full output.

There was also an assumption that no-one would ever want to listen to tape, tuner, phono or any other source other than digital. The result is that you have to knock the digital source signal down in order to use it. Passive can kinda sorta work in this regard but have problems, attenuators can kinda sorta work but have problems and active preamps can kinda sorta work but have problems.

If you want to get to the bottom of this, complain to whomever made your digital source! They need to set the output to something a little more reasonable- 2 volts would help and 1 volt (which was the old analog standard) would be great.

We've been building our volume controls in our preamps so that the first few steps are fairly close together to help get around this problem. We can also build our preamps so that the line section has no gain but still buffers the volume control and can still control the interconnect cable to eliminate cable artifacts. But this too is an imperfect solution. In a world where you have some amps with anywhere from 15 to 50 db of gain and speakers that are anywhere from 84 db to 104 db, there are going to be problems!!

Now, much more so than back the 1970s or 1980s, equipment matching is a serious issue.

Thanks for pointing that out George. Funny thing though, we see 4 volts and more all the time, of course we get a lot of balanced line DACs and CDPs used with our stuff, which may explain the disparity.