oppo's volume control

George I'm not following you the Osiris is an integrated amp that uses a passive pre-it also has a direct input to allow the Osiris to be used in say a home hi-fi set up. I've maybe not explained it correctly.

As I understand it, there is not bit stripping on the 105 DAC's.

For whatever reason when I go direct into the Osiris with the Oppo the sound is noticeably poorer-it doesn't sound transparent at all quite the opposite.

06-01-14: Ben_campbell
But going direct from the Oppo into the direct option on the Osiris even with attenuators you can not even get close to 75-so possibly that has had an impact on the noticeably inferior sound I hear.

Hi Ben, what I was responding too mainly was more to the quote you made above.
That you couldn't get close to 75% of full output, even with (I take it, plug in attenuators such as the "Rothwell" ones) which can sometimes give bad impedance matching between source and amps, and under this 75% of full volume "bit stripping" can become an issue with many digital domain VC's.

Cheers George

Hi, in my case I am using the Oppo with an integrated amp. My speakers are fairly efficient and my amp is rated at 150wpc.   I found that if I set the Oppo's volume at variable : 85 it allows me to have the volume knob on my amp at 10-11 oclock allowing more headroom as opposed to having the Oppo at a fixed volume 100 where I don't have much manoeuvrability from the volume knob. This brings me to my question.  Does this have an impact sonically on the sound? If I understand correctly , below 75 that is where a loss of sonic quality can be heard?   

I have the following set up.
Oppo Sonica DAC directly connected to Parasound A21 with variable or Oppo with fixed volume connected to Sony TA-A1ES integrated. The Sony integrated sounds much better than A21 directly from Oppo. I am saving up to buy a good pre-amp to pair with A21, so I can move Sony to bedroom system.