No Pain No Gain?

Thanks for all your response. At certain levels of higher gain settings I believe it amplified hiss levels, when they are already on the recording. So I am now inclined to have the pre-amp setting at 0 db gain with the EMMLabs player at high (+18db). I just love the absolute blackness, and silent parts - of musical passages - in Classical and Jazz recordings.

If and when I do get a record player, I guess we'll have to experiment with the gain setting/matching more carefully.

Regards
Henry

the following statement is true:

"no gain, no pain"

Mr Tennis, I'm no bodybuilder, but they would argue that the opposite holds true for them, no pain no gain :-)

But the Emmlabs unfortunately doesn't come with a no gain option. The lesser the gain, the higher you need to turn up volume, the more you get distortion and/or noise. The best result for my system for now is high gain setting on the CDP and 0db or 6db on the pre-amp, depending on the CD recording. Great that I can change that easily by remote.

Regards
Henry

the higher you need to turn up volume, the more you get distortion and/or noise

If so, there's something definitely wrong with the S/N -- the system noise floor is veru high, or gain stages, or...
I strongly suggest you check it out.

As far as the ML No. 32 is concerned, I don't think that either the gain setting or the input offset affects the sound. I believe that these controls are used to match relative levels of each input. I don't think the different settings engage different number of stages of amplification; they just set the selection of the resistors in the stepped attenuator. So, for any given volume level--whether set by going +6 on the gain and -6 on the offset, or just increasing the volume knob by 6db-- the same set of resistors are switched into the circuit.

By the way, I do miss the incredible flexibility and terrific implementation of volume/balance control of my Ref. No. 32 (currently relegated to back-up status).