PS Audio BHK owners

FERTGUY what is the gain of the preamp and the amp your speaker are low efficiency amps watts do not matter

There is nothing wrong with your preamp. If the Carver is SE you are only getting 3 db gain from the BHK plus the efficiency ratings posted by speaker companies are generally fantasy’s and that is proven when JA actually tests them. Depending on the input sensitivity of the amp, the size of your room, the ambient noise level for the room and your distance from the speakers what you are experiencing is perfectly normal. But feel free to call James at PSA and talk to him but you need to have that input sensitivity number before you do.  I have owned the BHK preamp for over three years and used it with at least a half a dozen different amp and at least that many different speaker combos and the optimal setting was different for every one.

In the PS Audio Forums Paul McGowan has stated:

Paul CEO PS Audio Sep ’16

The BHK preamp has 10dB of gain.

If that is the case, that’s a good thing. You want to be able to have the volume turned up some. 40 (out of 100) is a very reasonable level to set the volume at.

My understanding is that lower gain also means that the tubes will not be run as hard as preamps with higher gain (many have 26 - 29 dB of gain), resulting in less tube noise and longer life for tubes. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can verify or correct that.

I searched Paul,s videos about this w/no luck.  I swear, you guys on here know everything.  Thank you all for the responses.

Usually, a volume control has the least effect on sound quality when the control is reducing gain the least (i.e., turned up). So I would not be concerned about a volume control that needs to be higher than expected.

The gain structure of many audio systems is not optimal. The amp has so much gain that the preamp has to be set for a lot of attenuation. This is not sensible from an engineering point of view, nor is it likely to improve the sound quality.