I originally wrote a long a few paragraphs on figuring out what riding gain meant.   Thought I'd boil it down and ask how other folks here set the volume on the Torri and their source.

Thru chance I've determined that cranking the Torii MKIII to full volume and with the Oppo volume starting low, raising the Oppo volume up to around 60% give or take yields real 3D like results vs my old way of setting the source to 100% and raising the Torii's volume up.

Right away, bright recordings are tamed,  bass definition is improved, vocals sound more natural etc.  Liquid is the first word that comes to mind.  

Anyone else feel the same way?

Greg

Some further thoughts on this way of running the stereo.  I hadn't been real impressed the the Gold Lion KT77's.  w/ the Oppo at 100% and using the volume control of the amp,  the bass was just too boomy coming out of my 945's w/ bass cabinets.   Plus, the rest of the sound seemed uninvolving,  more SS sounding if I had to give it a name.

With the amp volume at full,  and the Oppo output at around 65%,  now the sound is totally changed for the better.  It is rich and textured at all freqencies.  And for late night listening,  the added bass these tubes bring is ideal.  A totally full range sound at low volume.  Really cool.

I now get why Orangecrush is so taken by these power tubes.  I was trying to sell them here,  just cancelled my ad.  Driven properly in my rig, these are a very involving tube despite not using the Haazen Grid Mod.

Greg

Greg,

I'm running the Oppo 105 directly to my Mystery Amp - I'm finding my results rather match yours. I prefer the ZMA pretty well cranked, and I start with the Oppo volume around 50% (for background listening), and raise it up as needed. For critical listening I look for that sweet spot, or for really enjoying the punch of the music, it's pretty much 95% on the ZMA and 90% on the Oppo.

I feel the Oppo is maybe a little too try on the top end, and the ZMA's honesty doesn't soften that up at all. Riding the Oppo's volume the way I do seems to tame the high end enough where I can listen to anything from streamed TV to 24/96 high def files, to Blue-Ray audio/video.

Granted, I still have trouble with highly compressed, very dry sounding CD's (which is lots of rock and pop from the '90s), and I've still not found any 24/192 that I like; omething in the high end of 192 files is like dust tickling my inner ear or something - really hard to explain.

I'm considering a Decware preamp to help smooth these out further and add even more punch.