Wig, is there a discussion of this that you can point me to? I would think that there would be plenty of gain, more than needed in most applications, with the CD-5. Do you mean that people are winding out the level to the "Max" setting? If so, I would fear they are listening at levels far too high, and run the danger of harming their hearing.
In my use of the CD-5, both during the review with the quite inefficient Kingsound King speakers at about 83dB and afterward, I have not had to push the output level of the player. I do not listen at "live" or "concert" levels, i.e. about 100+dB. I do not consider where I do much listening, at about 88-90dB to be low volume. It's definitely moderate moving toward loud. So, I'm curious about the context of comments that the CD-5 doesn't have the gain for moderate levels. I certainly would not agree with that.
In fact, with the VAC Signature Preamplifier MkII I had too much gain; the combo ran so "juiced" that I had to keep the CD-5 on the low Gain setting (4V) and even then could not take the volume control past about 10 O'clock on the VAC pre. So I'm not sure where this complaint of not enough gain is surfacing.
Is it possible the comment is being made in the context of use of very low power SET amps with the CD-5, maybe with some seriously inefficient speakers? Perhaps with a mismatch between amp and speaker this could come into play, but other than that scenario I would have difficulty seeing someone not getting enough level control from the player. But that might be a problem with an outboard preamp as well; I wouldn't judge the player to have an issue if a system is set up poorly. Again, with the Gain switch on the back of the unit I would think that the CD-5 would have plenty of output. But I'm open to hearing what others are experiencing.
In my use of the CD-5, both during the review with the quite inefficient Kingsound King speakers at about 83dB and afterward, I have not had to push the output level of the player. I do not listen at "live" or "concert" levels, i.e. about 100+dB. I do not consider where I do much listening, at about 88-90dB to be low volume. It's definitely moderate moving toward loud. So, I'm curious about the context of comments that the CD-5 doesn't have the gain for moderate levels. I certainly would not agree with that.
In fact, with the VAC Signature Preamplifier MkII I had too much gain; the combo ran so "juiced" that I had to keep the CD-5 on the low Gain setting (4V) and even then could not take the volume control past about 10 O'clock on the VAC pre. So I'm not sure where this complaint of not enough gain is surfacing.
Is it possible the comment is being made in the context of use of very low power SET amps with the CD-5, maybe with some seriously inefficient speakers? Perhaps with a mismatch between amp and speaker this could come into play, but other than that scenario I would have difficulty seeing someone not getting enough level control from the player. But that might be a problem with an outboard preamp as well; I wouldn't judge the player to have an issue if a system is set up poorly. Again, with the Gain switch on the back of the unit I would think that the CD-5 would have plenty of output. But I'm open to hearing what others are experiencing.