Ok, There are circumstances where a passive may be best and ones where an active will work best. This based on objective as well as subjective reasons.
Control volume with DAC or Preamp?
My DAC (PS Audio Directstream) has a volume control and so does my preamp(Benchmark), of course. What’s the best way to control the volume of my system to get optimum sound...turn the dac to maximum volume and use the preamp to make adjustments , turn the preamp to maximum and use the DAC for adjustments, turn each of them up part way? Or does it not make a difference?
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That’s totally understandable when you see this frequency response graph, the roll off in the bass with a 100k load starts at 100hz and gets worse as it goes down to 20hz, which indicates to me it’s capacitor coupled. And that capacitor "could" be too small (impedance mismatch) when it sees the input of what ever amp/s you have or even 10kohm Passive preamp load as well, it could be much worse and roll off the bass even more than with 100k, and resulting in your "anemic " sound https://www.stereophile.com/images/914PSDSfig04.jpg Cheers George |
Ralph is product (his active preamp) protection mode, omitting the reason behind a "why" the "rare" times a passive "may not" be the least coloured, least distorted, and best dynamicallyThe reason passive controls tend to sound more colored is they are unable to buffer the control, they are unable to control the otherwise audible artifacts of the interconnect cables. They sound best (more bass, more 'realness' across the audio band) when the control is set to maximum but of course this isn't practical. |
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