Need Help From The Resident Experts

@almarg your wealth of information about all things audio related never ceases to be impressive, informative and rather well articulated. 

+1 almarg (sort of redundant).  No question that the problem is too much gain.  FWIW, I've used a pair of 10 dB Rothwell attenuators successfully in the past. 

I appreciate all the responses, but the bottom line is I want a different preamp.  I am much older now and I would like remote control, phono input and either a tape monitor or processor loop.  I have been looking at the Rogue RP-5 and wonder if it will work well in my system.  What do you guys think?  Keep in mind I have had 3 Modulus preamps in my system since 1992 and I want to try something different.

The RP-5's nominal output impedance of 500 ohms doesn't quite meet the guideline I suggested, and I couldn't find any measurements indicating how high that number may become over the audible frequency range.  So you might want to contact Rogue and ask them what its output impedance is at 20 Hz, and if they would recommend it for use with a power amp having an input impedance of 22K.

Otherwise I don't see any technical issues that would arise with the RP-5.  I have no particular knowledge of its sonics, though.

Hal, thanks very much for the nice words.

Regards,
-- Al