Hello James Zep, welcome to Audiogon (I like both bands.:))
Well how loud you have to turn the volume knob depends on several factors. How large your room is, how efficient your speakers are, what you amp's input sensitivity is, how much gain your preamp has and what the output voltage of your source is. As you can see, there are many factors that come into play here.
I don't know how big your room is or how efficient your speakers are. I can't find the Pass X250's input sensitivity. I can see that the Krell KRC-3's gain is only 6.5 dB, which is relatively low for a preamp. I also can't find any information on your Marantz's output voltage.
So, there are many unknowns in this equation. The one known says that 6.5 dB is on the low end of the gain scale for a preamp. For instance, my preamp has 20 dB of gain. So it could be an issue where your KRC-3 just does not have enough gain to mate with the rest of your system. However, it won't hurt your system to run the volume knob at 3 or 4 o'clock. Many folks have the opposite problem, where 8-9 o'clock is blowing them out of the room.
Bottom line, if the system is playing loud enough for you, don't worry where the volume knob is located. If it is not loud enough with the volume cranked all the way up, then you need to look for a preamp with more gain.
Well how loud you have to turn the volume knob depends on several factors. How large your room is, how efficient your speakers are, what you amp's input sensitivity is, how much gain your preamp has and what the output voltage of your source is. As you can see, there are many factors that come into play here.
I don't know how big your room is or how efficient your speakers are. I can't find the Pass X250's input sensitivity. I can see that the Krell KRC-3's gain is only 6.5 dB, which is relatively low for a preamp. I also can't find any information on your Marantz's output voltage.
So, there are many unknowns in this equation. The one known says that 6.5 dB is on the low end of the gain scale for a preamp. For instance, my preamp has 20 dB of gain. So it could be an issue where your KRC-3 just does not have enough gain to mate with the rest of your system. However, it won't hurt your system to run the volume knob at 3 or 4 o'clock. Many folks have the opposite problem, where 8-9 o'clock is blowing them out of the room.
Bottom line, if the system is playing loud enough for you, don't worry where the volume knob is located. If it is not loud enough with the volume cranked all the way up, then you need to look for a preamp with more gain.