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Troubleshooting help please

Hello,

What could cause sound not too completely turn down. With the volume control all the way down on my preamp itself or using remote, I still get sound. When I select mute sound goes out as it should. It is not very loud but I can clearly hear the music from 15 feet away. I have a tube amp and preamp. The same scenario occurs whether I am using tuner or CDplayer as source. I know issue is linked to preamp since problem does not exist with my other preamp. Could this be an impedance issue or is it simply an issue with the volume control itself?

Thanks
sympaticonorm
sympaticonorm OP
103 posts
 
If the gain is too high, I assume that preamp could then work fine with another amp and that it is simply a pre-amp & amp mis-match issue...is that correct. I will spray contact cleaner just in case.

Thanks
newbee
4,767 posts
 
If the gain of your pre-amp is too high you would not have very much use of the VC. Assuming a normal amp input sensitivity, you would probably be restricted to volume control use below 9 o'clock where some VCs may have balance issues and, if stepped, the incremental increases between steps is too high.

For example some pre's have 3db (or more) steps at the bottom of the scale, but when you get up to say 10 to 2 o'clock (the former being probably normal for average systems and the latter for really inefficent systems) the gradient of steps may be reduced to as little as .5bd and gives you a lot of flexibility for fine tuning.

This is sort of generic information, but I hope it helps a bit.
rhljazz
1,255 posts
 
Why would this be a problem? I would not consider that to be something that required repair. I would say it is a result of of the gain structure of the preamp. Don't worry about it.
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