About 10-12 years ago, I designed a preamp that used the PGA2320. I still have it. It works quite well. The PGA2320 is a bit noisy, but better options are available that I could use instead.
Let me guess: You forgot to include about 12 dB of following attenuation? After all, the thing can output 8.5 Vrms if you want, and the average power amp's input sensitivity is about 1...1.5 Vrms - not a good match and a waste of dynamic range. 10 µV of noise + 29 dB is about 270 µV of output noise, that's about NJM4558 @ 16.5 dB + 29 dB level. Acceptable but nothing much to write home about. Cut it by 12 dB, and we're talking world-class performance. (I'd consider making it jumper-selectable @ 0, -12 dB, -20 dB to cover everything from tube amps to sensitive horn speakers on solid state.)
In the right spot, 120 dB of dynamic range is sufficient to cover anything from dead silence to ear damage. The DR provided by a low-noise preamp with volume pot actually is surprisingly high, 128 dB is not unusual (but of course, a good chunk of it generally is never being used, and you end up around 108-111 dB).
I have some 80s/90s examples that would blow your mind with volume controls, input selectors and other analog style 'modernisations'.
Sansui incorporating a microprocessor 'auto-search' system on an analogue tuner (T-7) that through a complicated worm/reduction drive and clutch would zoom the tuner pointer across the dial and stop on a station using up/down buttons.
Incidentally, not a new idea even then - SABA did something like this on a tube radio in like 1960.
Sony's TOTL TAE-80es preamplifier with a ridiculously unreliable motorised internal input selector that is another nightmare to repair.
They weren't the only ones to do that - remote-controlled Onkyos from around 1990 also had this. Those are mainly plagued by issues with the external input selector (inputs jumping), a switch + resistor ladder affair feeding an ADC. Apparently a combination of contact issues + lack of debouncing, a service bulletin describes a mod.
Yamaha motor driving their rotary input selectors via remote control, replete with a little indicator LED. Looked ultra cool across the room- remotely stopping at each input and a matching motor driven volume too.
All of those systems are unreliable. In the case of the Yamaha motor driven input selector, made by our friends at Alps, it is half a day's work to repair the intermittent contacts issue and in most cases the entire amplifier/receiver is written off. They used those devices over many years on top models.
Are those the ones with the silver-plated contacts (silver tarnishes -
surprise) that they issued a gold contact replacement for a few years later (which has proven one of their most popular spares)? Like on the AX-1050? You just can't buy integrated amps like that any more - they had a 2-stage volume control using a 4-gang volume pot, like fancy 1970s-80s high-end preamps. A 145-170 W / 8 ohm amp with a residual noise level of 35 µV(A)! (And that's basically the power amps themselves...)