Pulled out my vintage 1520 CD player and hooked it up to my Hafler DH-100 preamp & DH-200 power amp to listen to my Stax headphones which are connected to the power amp's speaker terminals via the Stax adapter.
Using the 1520's Variable output mode, I set the preamp's volume control at 12 o'clock and then adjust the CD player's volume with its motor-driven remote control. At about 1 o'clock on the Denon's volume knob the sound is comfortably loud.
My question: is it better to try as much as possible to closely match the preamp's volume control w/ the CD player's remote control volume or should I set the preamp's volume to Max and just leave it there and then adjust the volume level with the remote control? In computer audio, for the best possible sound quality it's recommended to set the Music Player's (iTunes, WMP, JRiver, etc.) volume to 100% and then adjust the volume via the computer's main volume control ... but I'm not sure if there's any correlation between this and old-school hi-fi components.
P.S.- Any sonic advantages of using the Fixed output mode? As I understand, in this mode the preamp's volume control would have sole control for adjusting the volume.
