Control volume with DAC or Preamp?

Ralph is product (his active preamp) protection mode, omitting the reason behind a "why" the "rare" times a passive "may not" be the least coloured, least distorted, and best dynamically

Only when there is a impedance mismatch which is maybe 5% of the time, when the ratio is lower than 1:10
 
As most sources can easily drive a 10k passive, and a 10k passive can easily drive power amps that are 33k or higher input impedance, most are, the industry standard 47k and most tubes are 100k.
Only some silly Class-D are 10k input, passives don't suit these, as to many tube pre's don't either

Cheers George  

Ok, There are circumstances where a passive may be best and ones where an active will work best. This based on objective as well as subjective reasons.   

I think it depends on the Dac.

I used to own the PS Audio Direct Stream Dac. Running direct to my amps it was a bit anemic.

Now that I own the Lumin X1 it sounds waayyy better running direct to the amps. I ended up selling my Ayre preamp. 
Which helped pay for the Lumin.

ozzy

ozzy
I used to own the PS Audio Direct Stream Dac. Running direct to my amps it was a bit anemic.

That’s totally understandable when you see this frequency response graph, the roll off in the bass with a 100k load starts at 100hz and gets worse as it goes down to 20hz, which indicates to me it’s capacitor coupled.

And that capacitor "could" be too small (impedance mismatch) when it sees the input of what ever amp/s you have or even 10kohm Passive preamp load as well, it could be much worse and roll off the bass even more than with 100k, and resulting in your "anemic " sound

https://www.stereophile.com/images/914PSDSfig04.jpg

Cheers George

Just for accuracy... The DS Dac is transformer coupled. You can see it here:

https://images.app.goo.gl/oDW85e3k2MKCXJP98