[gray_wolf]

If you were designing a solid state guitar preamp for guitar, pedal steel and
fiddle for the cleanest possible sound what would be the maximum signal input
you would design for. I built some amps Using j-fets.My first stage would handle
1.0 Vrms, with a gain of 10.

This worked well but I, later on, upped the power amp to 240 watts and felt I
could use a bit more front end gain and eliminate the master gain control for
low noise studio work.

It really doesn't matter much. I'll be 80 in February and will most likely never
build anything again. Still I like to think about what I could have done better.
:-) My gut tells me a +- 24 volt front end would be a start.