Hi Margot,
What you are doing is perfectly reasonable. They are saying that since the CD player includes a volume control function, as an alternative you could exclude the preamp section of the 50a integrated amplifier from the signal path when using the CD player, by connecting the output of the CD player directly into the power amp section of the 50a. Apparently the 50a can be set to route whatever is connected to inputs 3 or 4 directly into its power amp section, which would bypass its preamp section and its volume control.
While doing that may indeed "elevate the performance to an even higher level," I suspect that the "elevation" would be minor, if any. If you decide to try it at some point, you would want to consult the manual for the 50a to determine how to set input 3 or 4 to bypass the preamp circuitry. You would also want to be absolutely certain when you initially power up in that configuration that the volume control on the CD player is enabled and turned down low, because the volume control in the 50a would no longer be attenuating the signal.
An experiment you might consider trying in the present configuration, btw, would be comparing various combinations of settings of both volume controls, adjusting for the same overall volume in each case, and noting if any sonic differences are perceivable.
Best regards,
-- Al
What you are doing is perfectly reasonable. They are saying that since the CD player includes a volume control function, as an alternative you could exclude the preamp section of the 50a integrated amplifier from the signal path when using the CD player, by connecting the output of the CD player directly into the power amp section of the 50a. Apparently the 50a can be set to route whatever is connected to inputs 3 or 4 directly into its power amp section, which would bypass its preamp section and its volume control.
While doing that may indeed "elevate the performance to an even higher level," I suspect that the "elevation" would be minor, if any. If you decide to try it at some point, you would want to consult the manual for the 50a to determine how to set input 3 or 4 to bypass the preamp circuitry. You would also want to be absolutely certain when you initially power up in that configuration that the volume control on the CD player is enabled and turned down low, because the volume control in the 50a would no longer be attenuating the signal.
An experiment you might consider trying in the present configuration, btw, would be comparing various combinations of settings of both volume controls, adjusting for the same overall volume in each case, and noting if any sonic differences are perceivable.
Best regards,
-- Al