Changing the gain on my S300

Funny enough, I’ve had issues with it.
The reason being, I listen to music with my baby boy on my lap and the 01 volume setting is a bit too loud when he falls asleep. 01 is not low enough. And by the time you get to 10 to 15 the volume changes are too small. I need lower gain on the amp or better fleshed out low volume notches on my GCD.

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I suggest the soldering iron, if that’s your thing?
I sympathise, it’s 2am here and I am playing very quietly. I’ve thought of getting a class A 5 watt type of amp for these sorts of times for my secondary speakers, I may yet :slight_smile:

Yeah, I might do something… But I’m still curious about how the gain was set on the S300. And, If there is any way that I could change it.

I just want to change it and mess around with it.

Why don’t you just buy a Schitt Sys for $49 and you can adjust the gain from the preamp to whatever you want. Will accomplish the same thing.

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I’m sure somebody will correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding of the gain cell architecture is this:
The volume control rather than attenuating the signal directly, changes the gain of the gain cell stage, and doesn’t sit in the signal path. This means that the quality of the potentiometer is less critical ad the sound of the SGCD is more consistent over a range of volumes.

That is correct. That’s the idea behind the Gain Cell. A variable gain amplifier that does not place anything (like a pot) in the signal path.

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Hey there Paul

I have a question, actually a couple questions.
So the variable gain amplifier, what are the differences between a low medium and high settings on volume adjustments? For example 10, 30, and 70.
If I remember correctly in an old issue of stereophile, b. M. C has an amplifier also with variable gain. And it’s linearity and dynamic range changed for the worse as you put it up but it was better at low volumes.
which mind you is better for the end-user in my opinion since most of us never use it at the highest volumes.

Let me just remind you, I still love and adore my gain cell dac as a pre-amplifier so I’m not hating on it. I’m just interested about how it works and the subjective audio effects of different distortion profiles.
No one seemed capable of giving me any answers at audio science review.Ha!

Don’t get me going about Audio Science Review. We’ve continually got to undo the damage those people perpetrate on an unsuspecting community.

The variable gain amplifier modules we base the GCD on are called Gilbert Cells, or Transconductance amplifiers. They are commonly used in recording consoles (and analog synthesizers) because their gain can be controlled with an external voltage.
They are current based amps, meaning they have a zero impedance input, and the input current as supplied (through a current set resistor) is a function of current gain as specified by the input control voltage.

One of the features of these stages is they sound remarkably the same for differing gain sets. Identical? No, nothing I know of can make that claim. However, they are very stable and uncolored throughout their practical gain ranges.

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Awesome! Thanks Paul!

Also, gotta get my hands on the Stellar phono and the (hopefully) transport.

Love you guys

Also, when designing, what kinds of sound considerations went into matching the GCD with the S300 M700?
Also, one more thing, would you consider the GCD mainly a pre amp or a dac? I’m looking into getting a separate dac to go into my GCD…

You couldn’t get any answers because they don’t really know what they are talking about. More often than not, the reviewer(s) know how to use audio measurement gear (but not necessarily how best to hook it up), but have little to no knowledge about listening to music, or evaluating an audio chain for anything more than distortion readings (which mean rather less than they suggest), and repeat well-known, and often debunked, audio “tropes” as if they are gospel, without any context.
They sometimes listen to a device under test quickly, if they have time, on a pair of headphones, which rather says it all.

Most of the readers (I might almost say “followers”) know little to nothing, based on the responses, about listening to music, or the technicalities of the reviewing.

Ironically, rather like a flat earth site…

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AMEN! AudioScienceReview is a site that never delivers on audio, science, or reviews. A serious dumpster of his lovely hobby.

I too have the GCD and the S300 amp going into Wharfdale Lintons (sometimes Klipsch KG4s) and ride the volume on my GCD around 04-07. It’s a little too low for me, but I am using balanced XLR which I didn’t know added +6db.

Seems there is nothing to be done without a passive preamp.

Either way @Paul, AMEN again on your thoughts of ASR. What a joke.

Hi, sorry to jump on this one after being so long on last post but I’m contemplating three S300s for my Linn Exakt active system (6 channels) and their power amps have a gain of 28.6 so I was wondering if the S300 gain of 30 would be too sensitive or would be easily overloaded by the Linn preamp/digital crossover stage.