Audio Research SP16 annoying volume control

Mating a preamp with an amp, you need to consider several things, such as gain of preamp, gain of amp, amp sensitivity, preamp output impedance, amp input impedance.

What Audiophile have said is very true (maybe with the exception of in/out impedances). I would also throw in a mix sensitivity of your speakers and output voltage of your CD player (I had this problem several years ago when I was using Theta Gen Va which had a generous, 6V output voltage).

To remedy the situation, you can (in general) do one of the following:

1. Reduce the output voltage of your CDP
2. Reduce gain of your preamp
3. Reduce gain of your amp
4. Reduce the sensitivity of your speakers

Reducing gain of your preamp seems to be the easiest thing to do (for example reducing sensitivity of your speakers would basicly mean that you would have to buy different speakers).

So if I match the pre-amp to a ARC power, then I presume that this would fix the problem?

Matching to an ARC amp will not necessarily fix the "problem". You either need to step down the output from the high level sources as I indicated above or buy one of their newer preamps, such as the SP17, LS17 or LS26 which have more steps (nearly double) in their volume control settings. Of course you could choose to leave things as they are and enjoy the music albeit without the ability to adjust the volume exactly as you like.

Or consider something like the Rothwell attenuators. Might be your cheapest solution. I haven't tried them, but heard good things about them. Search the discussions for Rothwell Attenuators. They might do the trick.

Kingmonkey88 - Had the same problem with an older SP8 that I had upgraded. Not enough options at the low end of the volume scale. Also had some of that problem with the LS15. This was with an ARC amp (and several other amps). I think Elberoth2 and others nailed it (and this is what I'm doing): Send the pre-amp in ane get the gain reduced. It's a bit of a pain, but worth it.