Who is using their DAC as a preamp?

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