I always wondered why vinyl seemed quieter than CD's? Great responses from you guys, @cleeds , etc. Back in the day when we had cassette decks in the rig we could just adjust the output to match the CD player or turntable.
Another factor to consider regarding volume is what ohm and sensitivity rating your speakers are.
It seems that 4 ohm speakers need more volume to sound good than 8 ohm speakers. Lower sensitivity also needs more volume than higher sensitivity.
When I had 8 ohm speakers in my main rig, I was most impressed with the Yamaha A-S3000 integrated amp regarding low volume dynamics. It was absolutely incredible! I was running Infinity RS4b's at the time and the sonics at low volumes really blew me away.
I thought that amp was the last amp I was ever going to buy for my rig. That was three amps ago...
Volume levels
I don’t know if it’s just me, but I find that I have to boost the volume levels more when I play records softly than when I listen to digital softly. I find that at low levels, records do not equal the intensity that low levels on digital do even if they emit the same number of decibels. I find that I’m forced to listen to analog more loudly to achieve the same measure of SQ.
How about you?