Super-sensitive volume controls - remedy?

As far as I remember the Redbook standard has always been 2v.
Just look at the first players from Sony/Marantz/Philips.
EG: Sony CDP-101 Marantz CD-73 etc.
They all have 2v output spec, which is all that's needed to drive the majority of poweramps from yesteryear or today into clipping.

All this gain with preamps today, is a left over from the days of vinyl with low gain phono, step ups, and head amps, when you needed some extra gain.

Today digital sources, including phono stages have 2v and over output and that's all needed with a passive pre or unity gain buffer to send an amplifier into full clipping, so why the extra gain??

I keep coming back to Nelson Pass's statement below.

"We’ve got lots of gain in our electronics. More gain than some of us need or want. At least 10 db more.
Think of it this way: If you are running your volume control down around 9 o’clock, you are actually throwing away signal level so that a subsequent gain stage can make it back up.
Routinely DIYers opt to make themselves a “passive preamp” - just an input selector and a volume control.
What could be better? Hardly any noise or distortion added by these simple passive parts. No feedback, no worrying about what type of capacitors – just musical perfection.
And yet there are guys out there who don’t care for the result. “It sucks the life out of the music”, is a commonly heard refrain (really - I’m being serious here!). Maybe they are reacting psychologically to the need to turn the volume control up compared to an active preamp."


Cheers George

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.

Almarg - I bought the Rothwells to help achieve a more common volume control setting for CD to match with the Aria preamp's built-in phono stage. I tried the Rothwells on the preamp's CD input. This helped a lot to bring the CD closer to the phono's ideal listening level near the volume control's 12 o'clock setting but the result was disaster …. and out came the Rothwells.

Jafox, as I said above two posts back, they "can" be a negative.
What is the output impedance of the component before them? and the input impedance of the component after them?.
That way we can prove with math, it was a bad electrical impedance match.

Cheers George

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.