"I tried making the receiver do a pre amp out into the power amp but I can't figure out how to do it on the remote."
To check the amp by itself, turn the gain controls on the back of your amp all the way off and then plug a CD player directly into the amp. Then just use the gain controls for volume. (I'm assuming that you tried what I recommended in my first post and it didn't help. If not, do that first.)
To check the preamp by itself, plug it into a headphone amp if you have one. If not, plug it into one of the inputs on your receiver. If the receiver has a pure direct mode, use it. If it doesn't, just make sure that everything is set flat. Be sure to start off with both volume controls turned all the way down and bring them up slowly
To check the amp by itself, turn the gain controls on the back of your amp all the way off and then plug a CD player directly into the amp. Then just use the gain controls for volume. (I'm assuming that you tried what I recommended in my first post and it didn't help. If not, do that first.)
To check the preamp by itself, plug it into a headphone amp if you have one. If not, plug it into one of the inputs on your receiver. If the receiver has a pure direct mode, use it. If it doesn't, just make sure that everything is set flat. Be sure to start off with both volume controls turned all the way down and bring them up slowly