No, not at all. In real world terms, it is simply that the 950 won't drive the amp as hard (probably into useless clipping!) as a preamp with more gain. In listening, it makes absolutely no difference what the gain of a preamp is. As an aside, in engineering perspective, it is desirable to have only as much gain as needed to drive a power amplifier into clipping, and no more. Having more gain than is actually needed just increases the noise the preamp contributes. Trust me, Outlaw is probably doing you a favor in lowering the gain by 3db!