I own an L3. It has a single-knob master volume potentiometer that is unstepped, motor driven and can be positioned with the remote. The L3 also has "right" and "left" separate stepped attenuators that are not controlled by the remote, but are "set and forget" controls for overall gain (or, more accurately, attenuation) and channel balance. The steps sound to me to be about 2dB apart. The master volume is a stereo 50k Alps pot of very high laser trimmed quality.
The raw gain of the unit is about 30dB, as in earlier units, but by using the stepped attenuators to set overall level and balance, control of volume with the master volume pot is very smooth and refined. I estimate my attenuation is set to about -15dB with the stepped attenuators and another 20dB with the master volume control. I am running a moving magnet cartridge (4mV output at 5cm/sec) into an ARC PH3 phono stage(54 dB gain) which is really hot. Still, with the L3, no problem. I have very fine control of volume.
This is an extremely refined preamplifier, and the problem with too much gain with the AI mod 3 and 3a units has been solved with this AI line stage arrangement
The raw gain of the unit is about 30dB, as in earlier units, but by using the stepped attenuators to set overall level and balance, control of volume with the master volume pot is very smooth and refined. I estimate my attenuation is set to about -15dB with the stepped attenuators and another 20dB with the master volume control. I am running a moving magnet cartridge (4mV output at 5cm/sec) into an ARC PH3 phono stage(54 dB gain) which is really hot. Still, with the L3, no problem. I have very fine control of volume.
This is an extremely refined preamplifier, and the problem with too much gain with the AI mod 3 and 3a units has been solved with this AI line stage arrangement