help me to understand the gain

The McCormack DNA-1 does have a pretty high gain but still a sweet sound. Even its little brother the DNA.5 Deluxe that is really musical has a gain of 29dB.

At one time I had a McCormack DNA-1 Deluxe, with a McCormack TLC-1 Deluxe preamp with signals being fed to it from a McCormack DAC-1 and an Oppo BDP 83 as a transport. Speakers were a rebuilt pair of KEF 104/2s that have a 92 dB efficiency. The room they were in was on the small side and the sound would get really loud with volume a little past the 9 o'clock position. The soundstage was great and the sound was crisp though.

I agree with some of the posts on top. You may have to modify or change your preamp to one that has lesser gain or your source to one that has a lesser gain or warmer sound. I say keep the DNA-1 but I have a heavy bias toward McCormack gear.

Couldn't find the Vout spec (or any others) on the Maverick DAC. If it's over 2V, that could be the problem. On a Monarchy DAC, it had an internal dip switch for 3V/6V output. High output is typical for DAC/preamps with a volume control.

Given the exceptionally high gain/amp and very sensitive Zu speakers, you have the ideal setting for a passive preamp(high quality). Your system needs no additional gain at all.
GoodLuck,

You can essentially nullify the gain of the preamp (reducing it to 2db) by placing a pair of 10db Rothwell Attenuators, or similar devices that are available from other manufacturers, at the preamp inputs.

However, to obtain an adequate overall reduction in gain, you would have to place an ADDITIONAL 10 or even 20db of attenuation at the power amp inputs, and there would be a problem doing that.

According to Stereophile's measurements of your preamp, its already very high output impedance of 2.7K at mid and treble frequencies rises to 11.5K at 20Hz. That rise will result in a significant deep bass rolloff when driving most or all readily available passive attenuators. (I've measured the input impedance of my Rothwell's as being about 33K, which is much too low to be driven properly by a preamp having that kind of output impedance).

As I see it, the fundamental problem is that your power amp is much more powerful than what is required by 101db speakers under typical conditions, and although (as was said above) power and gain are two different things, they generally have a significant degree of correlation. I would suggest selling the amp and replacing it with something that is less powerful and has lower gain. Having to pay for fewer amplifier watts may also allow you obtain better sound quality per amplifier dollar.

If you do that, be sure to choose an amp having high input impedance (ideally 100K or more), to be a proper match for the PrimaLuna.

Regards,
-- Al

i would replace preamp for McCormack with unity gain. one of my super-favorite is MLD as active in unity gain. perfect correlation indeed.