Who is using their DAC as a preamp?

George,
Linn also makes some great preamps.

I believe you like the coloration/distortion, it brings, but it impossible for it to make (midrange, depth and texture, resolution) itself
Pass Labs as well they all need to make money for the company, and this is what Nelson Pass says.

Nelson Pass,

We’ve got lots of gain in our electronics. More gain than some of us need or want. At least 10 db more.

Think of it this way: If you are running your volume control down around 9 o’clock, you are actually throwing away signal level so that a subsequent gain stage can make it back up.

Routinely DIYers opt to make themselves a “passive preamp” - just an input selector and a volume control.

What could be better? Hardly any noise or distortion added by these simple passive parts. No feedback, no worrying about what type of capacitors – just musical perfection.

And yet there are guys out there who don’t care for the result. “It sucks the life out of the music”, is a commonly heard refrain (really - I’m being serious here!). Maybe they are reacting psychologically to the need to turn the volume control up compared to an active preamp.

Cheers George

I would like to cut down some space. I guess one could get a DAC and use it as a preamp. The moon 390 looks really nice. Or a preamp with built in DAC. The Mcintosh c2700 looks great, plus DAC is upgradeable. 

I have used Nova Pre of course as a pre-amp for a while and now there is no audio. When it works it's great sounding with solid thump and everything is well pronounced, mids, highs and lows but very unreliable. I also had problem with the driver. Headphone out works well but being unable to use it as a pre-amp is a bummer.

Or a preamp with built in DAC

??? The whole point is using a dac’s (digital domain) volume control with no preamp after it, as a dac’s output buffer stage in 99% of cases has enough output and drive to drive just about any poweramp well over it’s full power.

Why as Nelson Pass says:
"Reduce the dacs output greatly with a preamps volume control just so then preamps output "gain stage" can make it back up again."
Your loosing signal to nose ration big time by not utilizing all the dac’s output which keeps the noise down. (Your robbing Peter (the dac) to pay Paul (the preamp)
It’s like driving a car with the handbrake on, and having the engine rev harder to keep the speed up.
Or if that analogy doesn’t do it for you.
It’s like turn on a garden tap full wanting max water pressure at the end of the garden hose, but the hose has got a kink in it.

Cheers George