Thiel Owners

coop_301

I have a RME ADI-2 Pro AE powered by a LPS and have tried what you are asking. My system is Bryston/Thiel. RME (with digital volume control disabled by locking it at 0dB) connected to preamp sounds much better than RME (with digital volume control active) directly connected to power amp. 
I have extensively tested the audibility of the RME digital volume control and can assure you it significantly degrades the sound quality, no matter what RME’s designer claims. But even with the digital volume control disabled, I think the RME is too far below the level of your ML/Thiel. A true high-end DAC should nail you to the listening chair until the track finishes. It does not do it for me - I just use it as a headphone DAC/amp for my PC/video editing setup. It is good for the price but is no giant killer.
Best wishes.
 

asiaaudiosoc,

 Thanks very much for the candid opinion on the RME!  I'm not very experienced in all of this, but I know enough that when multiple people on this thread don't seem hot on a DAC, it's time to look elsewhere.  I was also hesitant due to all the bells and whistles, not really my style.

  I'm still quite interested in the benchmark, but as always welcome suggestions.  This weekend I found a CIAudio VDA2 DAC that I had forgot I had, I'm curious to try that out once I get the tweeter back (though I understand that it's probably not on the benchmark level).  Thanks again!

All

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Happy Listening!

coop_301 & unsound 

The fun part about this forum is getting me and others to thinking about the subjects being discussed .  Preamp or no preamp , unsound's technical explanation got me thinking again , do I need an active preamp ? 

Asiaaudiosoc brought up a great point about the volume control , in my opinion it's the most important componet between your input devices and your amp .  I heard the difference between a stock and high grade Alps , it wasn't subtle .

@dsper, A room of that size could accommodate full range sound, the only thing that might be holding back that possibility is the c-j amp. Now, I like and have used c-j (though ss) in the past, and I don't mean to harp on this, but I think the resale on c-j stuff is quite good. You might be able to get a visually less imposing speaker than the CS5i's that could offer deeper frequency response and still meet your other criteria, if you would consider other amplification that met the loudspeakers needs rather than getting speakers that met the amps limitations.