I might disqualify to answer but English was never my strong suit & I don't follow instructions too well either! :-)
>>cartridge gain settings
The amount of gain you will be providing to the signal coming from the cartridge. You can multiply the cartridge output signal level by this gain number (not in dB but after you convert it to a linear number) & this will tell you the max. signal that you will able to feed your phono pre with.
>>the actual volume control on the pre-amp
The portion of the total available gain that you are actually using to listen to music. In most cases, the user rarely uses all the available gain in his/her system to listen to music at reasonable volume levels.
It is important to have much more gain than you are going to use as this ensures that the signal is within the linear operating range of the electronics being fed with this (music) signal. I.E. you are above the min. sensitivity of the electronics.
Hope that this complements TWL's post.
There is the aspect of hitting the max. input level of the electronics. You didn't ask for that, so I won't answer either.
>>cartridge gain settings
The amount of gain you will be providing to the signal coming from the cartridge. You can multiply the cartridge output signal level by this gain number (not in dB but after you convert it to a linear number) & this will tell you the max. signal that you will able to feed your phono pre with.
>>the actual volume control on the pre-amp
The portion of the total available gain that you are actually using to listen to music. In most cases, the user rarely uses all the available gain in his/her system to listen to music at reasonable volume levels.
It is important to have much more gain than you are going to use as this ensures that the signal is within the linear operating range of the electronics being fed with this (music) signal. I.E. you are above the min. sensitivity of the electronics.
Hope that this complements TWL's post.
There is the aspect of hitting the max. input level of the electronics. You didn't ask for that, so I won't answer either.