Who is using their DAC as a preamp?

There is a poster on another thread that uses a 1/3rd octave 31 band eq, as his passive device ( it has dual channel gain controls ). He compared it, flat, to 5 K preamps, and says it is superior to his ears. I have the same eq ( and I tried it via his recommendation ), but did not feel it came close to my Luminous unit in sq. However, it bettered some of my cheapie preamps ( RGR, Hitachi, AGI, Citation, GAS, SAE, Dynaco ). I sold my 2 megabuck preamps, which were both bettered by my Luminous unit.

I have been learning a lot about volume controls of late. In my years of having various components, I have never really thought about volume control quality. 

Back to the Mytek. Darko has a review up with a preference of an outboard preamp (BHK Pre-$6000). Darko does state, however,  the Mytek does sound very good job with direct input

Cleaner than the Sys...Ebay item # 253818627052...HiFi version. $40 or less, shipped. About what you would pay to build one. Promise..

It is the only way to go. There is so much fun digital stuff like room control and digital bass management. I send my phono amp to my digital preamp/DAC through a Benchmark ADC. The analog guys are now vomiting. But very few of them have heard digital room control and bass management work. The Best unit out now is the Trinnov Amethyst. The one I use now is a Tact 2.2X. Tact is now defunct but the 2.2X is a jewel. You just have to understand it's idiosyncrasies. Boy does it ever work great. 

Cleaner than the Sys...Ebay item # 253818627052...HiFi version. $40 or less, shipped. About what you would pay to build one. Promise..

Trouble is the minimum 1:10 impedance ratio.
It shows a 100kohm Alps passive!!!! and that will be a problem not for the source but with many poweramps
They should have made it 10kohm, that way all is good, except for <33kohm poweramps, which thank god there are not too many of.

Cheers George