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Component Impact

I've been an "audiophile" for 20 years and my experience has taught me that speakers have the most impact on sound. Well that was my experience until one week ago. Over the years I've changed speakers, amps, source, and cables...sometimes I could hear differences and sometimes I couldn't. I recently decided to upgrade my Densen B-250 preamp to the Densen B-250+. My ears still can't believe what I'm hearing...better separation,detail, soundstage. I'm totally shocked by the improvements. Has anyone else experienced significant improvements by changing/upgrading their preamp?
ricred1
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
"I would love to eliminate my preamp. What DAC with volume control do you recommend?"

There are only a few choices that enable actually eliminating the effects of the preamp:

1) Overdrive SE
2) older Bidat with external volume option
3) Weiss 202 because it has gain settings that can be used in conjunction with a little bit of digital volume reduction - only works with computer audio

The sound of these varies all over the map, so I recommend auditioning.

Another thing that helps significantly and even improves on the "no-preamp" system is to add a high-quality transformer buffer betwen DAC and amps. This has numerous advantages and improves SQ:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=108715.0

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
ricred1 OP
2,058 posts
 
Edorr,

What do you recommend under 5K? I will use the Apollo R as the transport for now, until funds permit me to upgrade.
edorr
714 posts
 
Depends on what school of volume control thought you subscribe to.

School 1 says all digital attenuation over say 6dB degrades the signal and is to be avoided (Steve N. is a proponent of this school).

School 2 says unless you are doing more than say 30dB attenuation you are absolutely fine with digital VC, and in fact, it is better than analog, because you avoid an analog circuit (advocates of are PS audio and Bel Canto).

My personal experience is consistent with school 2. I am not claiming school 2 is right and 1 is wrong. I'm just reporting my personal observations.

So first, if you need significant amount of attenuation (over 30dB) you probably need an analog VC, whether you're school 1 or 2.

There are three contenders in the $5K price range with analog (or hybrid) VC:

Empirical Audio Overdrive SE
Weiss 202 (Hybrid)
Aesthetix Pandora (Tube - MSRP 6K / street price 5K)

Note that the Overdrive has no remote control. With PC audio you can do coarse setting analog on the DAC, and do fine grain setting digital in your music server (say amarra or JRiver). With a CD player as source, this is a problem.

If you subscribe to school 2, and don't need more than 30dB attenuation, your options increase. Three highly regarded contenders with digital VC are:

PS audio Perfectwave DAC MKII
Berkely Alpha II
Bel Canto VB3.5

There are other threads on this subject you can read up on. I'm sure I missed a few.

Fully support Steve's suggestion to listen to a few DACs and make up your mind.

Have fun!
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