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!

[pdq]

Well, the simplest fix would be if one switch contact is dirty and not making a connection. Start by switching it on and off many times, then see if the problem is fixed. If not then get yourself a can of contact cleaner and spray that into the switch, again working the switch on and off.

If that still doesn't do it then we are looking at either a bad solder connection, a bad switch, a bad component (rare), or an incorrect component value (even rarer).

Something that is often used to look for bad connections or components is to squirt freeze spray in various places to see if that makes a difference.

Edit: By the way, it is the channel that is louder than the other that has the problem.

This post has been edited by pdq: Apr 11 2012, 21:20

[AudioKitten]

Well, the simplest fix would be if one switch contact is dirty and not making a connection. Start by switching it on and off many times, then see if the problem is fixed. If not then get yourself a can of contact cleaner and spray that into the switch, again working the switch on and off.

If that still doesn't do it then we are looking at either a bad solder connection, a bad switch, a bad component (rare), or an incorrect component value (even rarer).

Something that is often used to look for bad connections or components is to squirt freeze spray in various places to see if that makes a difference.

Edit: By the way, it is the channel that is louder than the other that has the problem.

Doesn't it make more sense that the problem is the potentiometer itself? Even six post pots show channel balance problems at very low volumes.