SPL Diamond - Review

I had to read all the way to the middle of your review to find out that you were talking about DACs. Not everyone is verse in all these names that you alluded to. But I am still not clear on your insistence that you control the volume through the DAC. Don’t you have a preamplifier?  The DACs that I have used (Marantz NA11S1, Nuprime Evolution, LUMIN X1) don’t have a volume control either. 

I use the outstanding pre-amp in the DAC. With its 135db dynamic range you would be hard pressed to find a pre-amp that can keep up except maybe the Benchmark. The volume has to be controlled manually. 

I have the SPL Phonitor 2 for a preamp and Gold Note PA-10 GaN class A amplifiers in bridged mode and I am in heaven. SPL is often overlooked, great German engineering. 

I am told by Will and Stef, their new North American team in Montreal, that they are coming out with a full size line that will allow them to cater to us audiophiles even better with more input/output options and I am told even higher levels of sound quality - hard to imagine how it gets much better, at least to my ears. Got to know them well solving an issue I had with one of my units. They have now taken everything in house rather than being represented by Focal-Naim so after sales service and support is excellent. 

Trying to think of another way to describe their house sound it would be reminiscent of combining the characteristics of a tube amplifier with a high end Class D amp that has insane dynamics. 

I knew you would come around !  Enjoy.   SPL is good stuff !

Thanks - it was not hard! Not so sure about the spoon in a honey jar reference they make in regard to the volume knob though! It does the job. 😎

The preamp in the spl is not that good , on any good preamp it has either a good resistor ladder ,or relay control forthe volume attenuator ,

the $20 Alps blue velvet is the cheapest way you can get, it’s a silver round can 

with 2 plastic wipers and a conductive spray on the wipers,you are robbed of a lot of detail   
vs a true Quality separate preamp ,or a dac with analog preamp built in with volume mentioned above , same goes for passive preamps ,built in .

I am just saying the truth , even spl separate preamps the same low quality Alps volume pot , for the money Linear TubeAudio , or even the Schiit freya+ preamp

are solid low cost tube  preamps , which too would be a plus .

a Solid state amp,Vacuum tube preamp is a classic combo. 

Here is a perfect example of why a Quality preamplifier is needed  as well as a High Quality volume attenuator is needed this is a spl preamp very good until you get to the $20 Alps volume pot ,Being in Audio ,having owned a Audio store and modding for many years Why would you go through all that then take a short cut to cut costs and ultimately your resolution ? Prima Luna does this too on a $5k preamp totally makes no sense ,IHave worked with some of the best electronics engineers in the business ,I just wanted to point this out ,

https://tmraudio.com/blog/tmr-exclusive-review-spl-elector-preamplifier-part-2/

@spenav    +1
People who use abbreviations, acronyms, or incomplete descriptions of what they are talking about eg. SPL Diamond (Spl Diamond what?), XTC 2.5 what?, are totally inconsiderate of the reader.  All it takes is having the initial reference name or acronym written in full or defined for the reader to understand.  After this full description, abbreviations can be freely used. This is not Twitter with a length limitation.  The reference must be typed out.  
Some who do not give the initial full descriptive meaning are either oblivious to the needs of their readers, don’t care that their readers do not instantly know what they are discussing, or enjoy a sense of faux superiority over those who can not instantly read their minds.
The readers on this platform and most social platforms have an extremely wide range of knowledge about the topics discussed.  Some are just starting their learning journey and others have over 50 years of dedicated experience.  At the very minimum, topics need to be discussed in a manner that all can comprehend. IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) this is just common sense. 

Well my findings differ from @audioman58 and I love my SPL Phonitor 2 pre/headphone amplifier.

https://spl.audio/en/spl-produkt/phonitor-2/

Hello I am just giv8ng you a absolute viewpoint from a technical electronics viewpoint. For sure  it can still sound good ,I was just pointing out short comings in the design theyshould not have done just to save $$monies .

as I stated many times speaking with companies and engineers having owned a Audio store Electrons and Loudspeakers on average only 25% of the cost actually goes into the product including packaging ,the rest R&D overhead and markup.

that’s why youhave Modwright or other design modifications to improve upon the design with higher parts quality in key area. 
in Loudspeakers which I have been modding over 20 years the Xover even in $25k 

speakers the inductors are usually pretty good but $3 resistors when you can use 

world class Path audio, or Mundorf Ultra resistors which are $30 retail $15 their cost , and many use the cheaper mid grade Mundorf Evo capacitors which are white ,when in fact their best are their Black Supreme line , Why to save monies $$ 

there are many better parts to use ,and most never even compare many capacitors
Tony Gee of Humble homemade hifi capacitor test helped me  20 years ago 

and is a great Loudspeaker designer .

There should be a rule, as many others have expressed, that you cannot comment, good or bad, on a specific component unless you have actually spent some serious listening time with it.