On: Resistor Noise Can Be Deafening, and Hard to Reduc...

[sobriquet9]

It's relatively easy to make a headphone amp quiet because its input is typically already quite strong.

Noise is more of a problem for microphone preamps, guitar pickups, etc., where the input signal is weak.

[kazinator → sobriquet9]

Bingo. In any piece of music gear that is after the guitar/mic preamp, where it is working with line level signal (a higher voltage than consumer audio line level, by the way), it hardly matters where you put the volume knob. If you design it halfway well, it will be quiet as a mouse.