1) The nature of a pre-amp's volume control is to "throttle" the volume of the sources, not to actually amplify it. Therefore what the volume control is doing typically is decreasing the strength of the source signal (hence the "-" values for most of the range). There can be some slight amplification, but it is not anywhere near the scale of a power amp. This is the case with any receiver or pre/pro, which is why the 950 and many other pre/pros use values like this for their volume control. You may also see some receivers that use numbers like this around the volume knob.

2) I would recommend calibrating the 950 as outlined in the manual (75dB using the test tones with the volume control set to 0dB). Under those conditions, I have been able to turn my 950/750 combo up to around +2dB before my ears started asking me to rein it back in. I expect that the 750 could reach +10dB without distortion, but only if my remote's signal could reach the 950 from the driveway for the sake of my hearing. The amp experts around here can tell you better than I can, but I believe the distortion you heard from your receiver was due to the amp beginning to clip because it couldn't keep up -- a separate power amp like the 7100 takes a lot more load to demonstrate that sort of undesirable behavior if it can be driven to that point at all, which is one of the inherent benefits of separates.

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