Audio Research SP16 annoying volume control

Audphile has a good suggestion, by far the easiest, cheapest way to deal with excess gain. I'm using a -10db. pair between my cd player and preamp with no audible degradation I can hear. It will give you finer incremental volume adjustments.

An ARC amp will not likely resolve this problem, as others have told you. I had the same problem with an ARC LS25MKII preamp with two different ARC solid state power amps (150.2 & 300.2). It was resolved when I purchased the newer ARC LS26 preamp.

It seems your most inexpensive option would be to send it back to ARC and have the gain modification done. My experience in dealing with ARC to resolve any equipment issues has been excellent.

Best of luck

I had the brand new SP16l for less than 2 weeks and I sold it at a big loss after ARC sent it back to me and the annoying abrupt level control did not get any better but worse. It is not the mismatch pre/amp issue. It is the flaw of the SP16 design. If your tolerant level is like mine, please do not send it back and wish for a good fix. It won't happen. Live with it or sell it.

so Andrew, are you saying tghat reducing gain is a waste of time and money and it won't help? interesting...

All I can say is the SP16L I owned came back from ARC with some modification and it did not show any improvement. As the matter of fact, it got worse that I ended up selling back to local dealer for much less than what I paid for. The SP16 has been replaced with the SP17 with a better volume control . Also, my speakers at that time were the Paradigm S2 v1 at 88DB at 6 ohm. I have to admitted that I did enjoy the sound of the SP16 / 4 BSST combo but I could not tolerate the hi-end product with designed flaw.