What good is the idea to place a resistor between speaker and power amp to reduce gain?

[anphex]

My Denon AVR regulates its output volume by reducing the bit depth like almost all digital audio gadgets do.
My Hypex amps have a large gain of about 29 dB. This is good in itself, but forces me to reduce the denon volume greatly to avoid blowing my ears, speakers and neighbor relationships.

The downside is the reduced bit depth due to the reduced volume, and after I swapped back and forth between the Hypex NC400 and Topping PA5 it bacome noticable.
The Topping has a gain of 19 dB, that's already 10dB or about 2 bit more depth compared to Hypex when adjusting for volume on my AVR. Now the Topping has a knob where you can reduce the gain or output stage even further, making it possible to run the pre outs of the Denon AVR near its optimum.

BUT the Topping is just barely too weak. There a some songs with low end bass parts when played louder you get clipping with my speakers. Not even neccesarily on party levels, just average room levels.

Now I have the following options in my opinion:
a) Get another amp where gain adjustment is possible. Due to the power needs of my speakers Purifi is probably the only way to go
b) Use something to "brake" the NC400 power amp so I can crank up the Denon.

a) Is possible but a waste of money with perfectly fine Hypex amps
For b) my stupid idea would be just to but a resistor between speaker and the NC400 for reduced current to make it quiter.

Could it be really that easy or is my idea even dangerous? Do you have another suggestion for this luxury problem?

Edit: Another idea, maybe just a resistor between AVR and power amp wiring?

Edit 2: What about something like this? https://s.anphex.one/5e766

 

[raindance]

Place a divider, such as a 10K log pot, at the INPUT of the amplifier. Never on the speaker output!

 

[DVDdoug]

It's not dangerous, but the problem is... You're making a voltage divider where the "bottom" resistor is the speaker. That would be OK except a speaker is not a resistor. It's a complex impedance where the impedance varies over the frequency range so a series resistor changes the frequency response (with higher output where impedance is higher and lower output where impedance is lower).

At 16-bits you probably won't notice the loss of a couple of bits and a 24-bits you won't notice it. You also loose resolution with analog attenuation to the extent you are attenuating the signal without attenuating the noise.

Under "normal conditions" when you lower the volume digitally you don't hear any quality loss simply because you are lowering the volume. But, it's a little different if you aren't otherwise using the full volume/gain. You can hear quantization noise at 8-bits if you have a full-volume 8-bit file, but I haven't done any experiments in-between 8 and 16-bits.

There are in-line RCA attenuators.