Advice needed re. peaking levels

[theSeaHawk]

If your Bryston amp does not have pre-amp outs, you could buy a set of RCA line-level attenuators. These plug in-line with the RCA left/right (in your case, on the tape out line) and can reduce the signal in increments of 3, 6, or even 12dB. Harrison Labs makes them.

Another alternative might be to use the headphone out (which would allow you to control gain) - however, headphone stages are often not as good as the main output stages and also can introduce additional noise into the signal.

[PhilR]

Bill, I was fiddling around with things tonight and thought I would try using my work Mac to see if it was the same (still with the tape out set) - it worked fine I was able to control the input volume using the slider at the top, and could get it so that it didn't trip into the read. For the exact same album. So what the heck is it? I switched to my home macbook pro and the problem was there straight away. I've looked at all the preferences on Audacity and they are set identical. I wonder what it is on my home mac that is different - if I could just change that I would be in business.

[kozikowski]

There is another panel sometimes used to set levels.

From the desktop:

Go > Utilities > Audio MIDI Setup

I don't remember which ones are supervisory -- that take priority.

Koz

[PhilR]

I don't suppose you know what my settings should be in midi setup - I'm guessing my problems lie in here.........

[kozikowski]

Set everything in the middle and make sure the controls are even. You know you have a bad left/right balance and everything is too hot. It's not rocket surgery if you find the controls badly misadjusted -- like all the way up or one down and one up.

This solution bothers me a little because these panels are supposed to chat with each other and reflect what each other is doing. It's very unusual to get a rogue panel or a stuck control.

Koz