Guido, are you running your Aeris directly to your amps or are you using a preamp in-between? If you tried it both ways, would you share any comments about the relative strengths and weaknesses of each approach?
Sunseekerespana, to your questions:
Is the no gain pre-amp a passive or have valves as a buffer?
The preamp is buffered using solid state devices, very similar to this;
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/smcaudio/vre1.htmlI use a passive (pot and source switch only). It works really week, but the thing to watch is the DAC has;
1 Enough gain
My current DAC, the Pavane, has an output voltage of 4V, which is more than enough to fully drive the amplifiers.
2 The output impedance is low (less than 500 ohms) If it is higher along with capacitance in your interconnects you may get loss of dynamics and bass roll off.
The buffering reduces output impedance and eliminates loss of bass or dynamics.
3 You can sit the DAC and Passive Pre very close to the Power Amplifier
This is always good practice when possible and particularly with passives. My ICs from preamp to amplifiers are I to 1.5M. When I compare my buffered preamp with a passive preamp I own (Goldpoint) I never use longer than 1M ICs. I also have Endler attenuators, which connect directly to the amplifiers and actually sound pretty good.
I am curious about the variable voltage volume control in DACs like the Overdrive SE/SX, Aeris and now Metrum's Adagio, and whether those have any negative effects (relative to usking a preamp) on things like bass impact, dynamics, staging or other desirable sonic traits. I was worried about these issues when I went to a zero-gain buffered preamp but it seems to be the best of both worlds with excellent bass and dynamics plus the clarity/purity passives are known for.
