Attenuator between pre- and power amplifier?, Moved from General Audio Options

[AudioKitten]

My receiver sounds beautiful but has far too much gain for my relatively efficient speakers. This causes me to listen to all of my music within the first 10-15% of the volume pot (20% if I'm blasting it). Because my potentiometer has rather apparent channel balance problems below 5% that don't fully go away until 10% or so I'm considering some way of lowering the amplifier's gain.

My question is this: Is there any real pitfalls to adding an attenuator between the preamp out and poweramp input in my receiver? I'm thinking anywhere -15dB up to -20dB fixed. My other options are to perform surgery and maybe replace a resistor or two or possibly replace the pot for one that has better tracking. Replacing the pot was my first plan but the replacement pots for my amplifier cost 70 bucks a piece and there's no guarantee the replacement will track appreciably better. My understanding is that at <5% pretty much all pots have tracking problems.

So... should I go ahead and add a fixed level attenuator between my pre- and power- stages or should I refrain and what are the problems that I should be looking out for?

Thanks!

[woody_woodward]

Friend, if you can solve your problem with a couple of resistors don't spend the $70.

Woody

[AudioKitten]

Friend, if you can solve your problem with a couple of resistors don't spend the $70.

Woody

Well... to be fair the schematic I was reading was a rather poor quality reproduction. I can't really tell if the resistors I was looking at were for gain or if they were part of the motor control mechanism. Stupid motor making parts expensive . I think the most desirable solution would be to replace the pot entirely in favor of a stepped attenuator but the volume pot is mounted on a circuit board instead of case mounted which makes those kinds of mods a *lot* harder.

This post has been edited by db1989: Apr 11 2012, 20:55

Reason for edit: Please quote above, not below, your reply.