What you want is an integrated amp. Preferably one with an actual pre-amp and not just a trim pot. Which is what you are talking about. What you call a volume control is really nothing more than a variable resistor.
Quality in audio is everything. There are lots of ways you can lose quality. One is lots of connections and circuits. That is the one you are focused on but it is only one. On a very long list.
The signal coming out of your source, whatever it is, if all you do is measure it like one of these guys who thinks measurements uber alles, then it seems like you have plenty of volts to spare. You can easily turn the volume up and drive the amp real loud. Whoop-de-doo.
But the amp is to the source as the speaker is to the amp. In other words your source has to be able to provide current and voltage into that amp under all conditions of frequency and dynamic range. Just exactly the same way the amp has to be able to do that with the speaker. The two seem very different but electrically and definitely conceptually they are the same.
The demands the input of an amplifier puts on a source is just like what a speaker puts on an amp.
So now think about your source. Think of it as an amplifier. Because that is what it is. How big a power supply does it have? Not much. Because it was designed to drive the input of a pre-amp, not an amp. Sometimes depending on the amp you luck out and it works pretty good. Other times you find the sound lifeless, no dynamics, or rolled off, or the bass is weak. Whatever. Same as a guy with a weak amp and demanding speakers.
This is why a pre-amp almost always improves on running direct. Using a pre-amp, now you are driving your amp with a power supply that is never gonna run out of gas. Now it is like having 200 tube watts on a speaker that never even needs 50. Now you are gonna have all the clarity and detail of direct, but with dynamic drive and powerful bass foundation too.
Makes sense, right? Got it?
Quality in audio is everything. There are lots of ways you can lose quality. One is lots of connections and circuits. That is the one you are focused on but it is only one. On a very long list.
The signal coming out of your source, whatever it is, if all you do is measure it like one of these guys who thinks measurements uber alles, then it seems like you have plenty of volts to spare. You can easily turn the volume up and drive the amp real loud. Whoop-de-doo.
But the amp is to the source as the speaker is to the amp. In other words your source has to be able to provide current and voltage into that amp under all conditions of frequency and dynamic range. Just exactly the same way the amp has to be able to do that with the speaker. The two seem very different but electrically and definitely conceptually they are the same.
The demands the input of an amplifier puts on a source is just like what a speaker puts on an amp.
So now think about your source. Think of it as an amplifier. Because that is what it is. How big a power supply does it have? Not much. Because it was designed to drive the input of a pre-amp, not an amp. Sometimes depending on the amp you luck out and it works pretty good. Other times you find the sound lifeless, no dynamics, or rolled off, or the bass is weak. Whatever. Same as a guy with a weak amp and demanding speakers.
This is why a pre-amp almost always improves on running direct. Using a pre-amp, now you are driving your amp with a power supply that is never gonna run out of gas. Now it is like having 200 tube watts on a speaker that never even needs 50. Now you are gonna have all the clarity and detail of direct, but with dynamic drive and powerful bass foundation too.
Makes sense, right? Got it?