Jay23 8-3-2018Sorry I misunderstood. Upon re-reading that page of the thread I believe you are referring to statements by Ralph such as:
I was referring to George and Ralph’s technical discussion on the last page (3), and not the whole thread and topic.
Atmasphere 7-27-2018and by George such as:
If the circuit only has to do 2 volts but can make much more, its distortion can thus be kept extremely low- to the point that its difficult to measure.
This is why many active preamps have such low distortion, because they are operated well below their limits. This is just good engineering.
Georgehifi 7-27-2018On that particular point I agree with Ralph 100%. And in fact a very common means of assuring that "any source that has been designed to give out 2v has been done so to be done to do so in it’s most linear state" [quoting George] is to design in exactly the manner Ralph described, providing a good deal more voltage swing capability than will actually be necessary. Also, consistent with that, a few posts prior to their exchange on that issue I had commented as follows:
Any source that has been designed to give out 2v has been done so to be done to do so in it’s most linear state, you would be a fool to do otherwise, unlike what Ralph will have you believe.
Almarg 7-27-2018
... if a preamp’s output stage is just operating over a small fraction of the voltage range it is capable of operating over, the result in many and perhaps most cases will be that linearity and hence distortion are a bit better than if it were operating closer to its limits.
Regards,
-- Al