My 30 Watt class A is louder than my 100 Watt Class AB?

@russ69 -- I know the Saga has no gain (that's what "unity gain" means.) And I was using a DAC with the typical 2 volt output, so nothing amiss there. While most of the time I got the desired playback volume, the problem was when the recording itself was recorded at lower than normal volume. Certainly not a problem with most pop/rock material, but there are some recordings out there where this can be an issue.  Its not an issue limited to certain turntables/phono preamps.

I went from a tube preamp with 3-5 db of gain into a ZMA and always had the preamp up more than half way to get reasonable volume from 96db sensitive speakers. When I got a Backert preamp with 9db of gain now all of the sudden the ZMA is a  power house and never needs the pre up nearly as much to reach very robust listening levels. Gain staging is crucial and of course component synergy.

Watts per channel are only the out put measurement ( horse power). There is so much more (torque) inside the an amp that produces the watts per channel. They did not name the company “First Watt” because it was catchy!

gain and input sensitivity ...man, how about my conrad johnson preamp:

Gain:

Phono stage 47dB

Line Stage 31dB

is is sometimes too loud at 9 o clock. i use inline attenuators on amplifiers that dont have a volume knob. man this thing has a lot of gain.

Heard back from Stanton re: the Hiraga specs

Input sensitivity is .5v

30db of gain - not 26 as I had thought.

That would explain the volume increase!

The Cary SLP-30 I am driving it with has variable gain, so I gave some wiggle room to play w that adjustment.