"Too much gain"? (Cary SLP05 question)

26db (Modwright KWA 150 SE).

I don’t own any Cary gear so can’t comment on that aspect of this thread. But I surely do know about gain problems in my main desktop system. I’ve wrestled with excessive gain in this system for years, always with the same symptoms: the main preamp volume pot has only a few degrees of play at the lower/left end of its rotation, such that the lowest volume to the highest volume are adjusted only from, for example, 7:30 on the dial (the end of counterclockwise rotation) up to perhaps 8:30 or 9 on the dial for the very loudest volume desired. Not only does this deprive me of the ability to fine-tune volume easily and repeatably; but it also risks the audibility of any channel-tracking non-linearity in any give volume pot.

This situation only got worse when I went from a delta-sigma DAC with 1.9 volts output single-ended; to a NOS/R2R DAC with 2.5 volts output; and most recently, to a NOS/R2R DAC with 3.0 volts output. I got through this because the preamp/headphone amp I’ve been using, the Violectric V281, has very granular and effect gain controls, separate for the line-out vs headphone output. With both controls set at -12 dB, things have been fine, and the V281’s range of usable rotatotion of the big stepped volume pot is ~9:00 (lowest volume) to ~1:30 (highest).

Then 2 weeks ago I got a new headphone amp/preamp that I burned in and want to hear as the main system preamp/headphone amp, in order to give the overworked V281 a rest. Unfortunately, this new unit (Kinki Audio Vision THR-1) represents a "perfect storm" of excessive gain:

• It has rather extreme power (28 wpc @8 ohms down to 1.3 wpc @600 ohms). It’s really an integrated amp that lacks speaker taps
• But it has no low/medium/high gain setting. What you get is the full native gain of the unit on all downstream sources
• As a result, this amp is virtually unusable in my system for use as intended.
• But I know from burnin listening that it sounds wonderful and suits my tastes in every way.

So what to do?

First, I experimented with inserting a very good sounding, transformer-based passive volume controller between the DAC and this new amp. Doing so is a real PITA (additional run of interconnect; place 2 new units on crowded desktop instead of just 1), but with its volume pot set to -10 dB, it does exactly what I want: the volume pot of the new amp now can be used from ~9:00 to 2:00 on the dial, lowest to highest volume, which is ideal for me.

Before this thread, I’d never heard of Rothwell attenuators, though I had heard of cheaper ones that get very dicey/up-and-down user reviews, with too many comments talking about loss of transparency and dynamics. Reviews and user comments for the Rothwell attenuators are far more positive. So I just ordered a pair of 10 dB attenuators as a way to simplify my new system.

My overall point here is the gain problems are totally real, Cary gear or no Cary gear. When you have gain problems, they can't simply be resolved by using the volume pot at the lowest few degrees of rotation. That’s usually produces sonically sub-par results, plus is borderline-impossible to live with, day to day.

@desktopguy any feedback on the Rothwell attenuators with the slp-05? 

@docroasty, I've never heard any Cary electronics. I've used the Rothwell attenuators (single-ended, rated @-10 dB) only on the Kinki Studio THR-1 headphone amp/preamp. In that application, the Rothwells did nothing I could detect to the overall sound, beyond lowering the gain somewhat (as intended).

I'd have to hear them in a larger 2-channel system to dial in their transparent. But in in my pretty resolving, high quality desktop system, they did exactly what they're advertised to do and seemed quite transparent.

@desktopguy ah thanks man. I read your previous post too fast. appreciate the reply though. I just ordered a set of Rothwell attenuators, so hopefully they'll do the trick.