Not ENOUGH GAIN

My amp(Decware Torii 3) and preamp (Artemis LA-1) both have a volume control. Do I want the pre up as much as possible and then phase in the amp?

"jeffreybehr: "And can your system play as loudly as you want it to?"

Maxwell, does your system play as loudly as you want it to?

Hmmm, since the Grounded Grid is a DIY preamp kit my recommendation is to contact the seller/designer of these kits Bruce Rozenblit and get his opinion on this. With the gain structure that Phil laid out, I'd also say that something sounds a bit fishy.

I think the best gain control on an amp is no gain control. It is convienient perhaps when your pre-amp is noisy or has too much gain to give you full use of the VC on your pre-amp, but you don't really need the minor degredation its use can create. Turn it to maximum and use the pre-amp VC. Now if you have a noisy gain stage in the pre-amp it can help reduce the noise - for me no noise is a bit better than minor degredation by the addition of a second attenuator.

I've had a Grounded Grid before, with 101 db efficient speakers. The volume knob was at about 9 o'clock. With 87 db efficient speakers, is 1 o'clock reasonable? Seems like it might be ...